Editing a Landscape in LIGHTROOM - Landscape Photography Post Processing

With the initial edit you show (when you were showing what NOT to do, bringing down the highlights, and increasing the shadows) people should realize that this is somewhat of a bad idea to do to a landscape, especially a sunrise/sunset. It's OK for a cloudy sky if you want to bring back some texture in the sky perhaps but when the sky is orange or yellow, this causes it to turn grayish, as I'm sure people saw, and I used to use the method of -100 highlights and +100 shadows, but have stopped doing this for this reason. Not so much of a problem with shadows but more highlights. This is very evident in light-sources like the sun or a lightbulb that's supposed to be "white". It will turn grayish.

What are those pen things called and where can I buy one in Canada ? If possible?

Thank you, Nick! It would be great to see you edit an image in LR and separately in PS. Would be great to see the side by side comparison. Love your work.

Nick… would love to see you edit the same photo in PS! Please!

Excellent tutorial. This is very helpful. Thank you!

Great video and great explanations! Fully understandable and easy to follow! Thanks a lot Nick!

Your an amazing photographer I’ve learned so much from watching your videos

Always finding more tools to learn how to edit in Lightroom! Thanks Nick!

I wish I'd found you earlier (more than just a few weeks ago, lol). I agree with you on PS for most complex editing and would love to see how you'd approach this, or a similar image in PS 👍

Great tutorial. Thanks

I would like to see you do an edit of the same image, one in Lightroom and then in Photoshop. Then we could compare the two, and see the difference.

Mahalo for the tip the word that caught my attention was “SUBTLE”. My edits came out much better now. 😊

So many tips here Nick. Thank you very much

I agree with most of this Nick but every time I see shots taken with something like the Sigma 35mm 1.4 Art lens my jaw drops.

Hey Nick, awesome video.
This is basically my edit in Lightroom. Do little global adjustments to get true blacks and whites, correct some colors and White balance and then use the local adjustments for everything.
Everybody - Including you, always says "photoshop is way more powerful!".
Yes - I know what Photoshop can do. But how does it change my processing? What can I NOT do in lightroom? If you find the masks to be unprecise in LR just use the Range Masking Feature to get it where you need it.
I know that you have the Layers and Layer masks and Lumenzia if you want to go to town. But I cannot find anyone that SHOWS how you can just hit a hard limit in Lightroom and make it way better in Photoshop.
I would LOVE to see how you do something until LR is at it's limit and then make the same stuff in Photoshop and own it like a king.


I used Photoshop for years for everything except photography. I know the program. But I don't know how it will be more powerful than Lightroom for Photo editing (Ignoring stuff like Content Aware Fill and HEAVY photoshopping like stacked Product photography and whatnot). I want to love Photoshop and I want to get better at my images. But everytime I'm in Photoshop I think to myself:
"This is way easier in LR and everything I do here, I can to there aswell. Why am I doing this?" then I close my Photoshop edit and do that in LR. :-/

Nick, Your the King!! Thank you

Thanks. Clear info. Very competent an great tutorial for the „only LR-people“ 👍👍

plz edit in ps

Why does nobody use the new LIGHTROOM CC? Can't find any videos with it.

New to your channel. Found this very useful. I'm new to both Lightroom and Photoshop so tutorials like this I find really helpful and easy follow.

Nick I kinda found this video late. I've always found Lightroom more suitable for global changes and ps for local changes. So mostly, I end up with only LR because of laziness because then I've to edit in LR, export, increased file size, edit in PS, export back, another increased file size and final few edits.

I really would love to see how the transition can be from LR to PS and how to do some very basic LR techniques in PS.

I can see why you use photoshop instead. Unfortunately the mobile version of photoshop really sucks whereas lightroom does kinda okay.

Love your work mate. Really love your work. Thanks

Thanks so much Nick, this was super helpful

Great video nice

Great tutorial. I rather use Filters on site instead. But thanks for the tutorial

Hey Nick - great vid. it would be really interesting to see you process the same image in PS.

Just found Nick. I’m from Australia love the straight talk no BS or “what’s up” over the top imitation. Down to earth and informative. Big thumbs up 👍

Thanks for the video

Hey Nick, thanks for the video. I learned a new way of LR-editing. Very helpful.
For me and maybe other audience too it would be very very interesting if you edit the same picture again in Photoshop! Because you explained that you have more control in PS and specifically work on the things that bother you in the photo.

Great tutorial. Lightroom will actually nicely remove that hotspot on the lake.

A big thumbs up from me. I edit in Lightroom. Some very good tips here for a very quick edit.

Thank you for simplifying this

Beautifully clear explaination of all you were doing, thanks Nick, I will be trying to increase my photoshop use but this was a useful start,Del

I have to laugh at myself sometimes, I should be spending far more time and energy watching photography and editing skills tutorials than watching Video Pitchmen selling the "Next best greatest camera" videos. You've schooled me Nick, and I appreciate it so much. Probably makes a lot more sense to buy your editing courses than buying another camera. I think I'll just learn more instead of buy more. Mahalo!

Multiple grad filters was a new concept to me. Thanks! This was all very helpful. Lots of good tips and tricks.

Thank you, very useful.

Great vid, Nick. Do you work your images in LAB mode or RGB when using PS?

I didn't know that you could dodge and burn on a layer that wasn't 50% gray.

So helpful. Thank you.

Thanks Nick

Would be great to see this image edited in photoshop too and see them side by side

What’s with the word global ?

Great video using the basic tools in Lightroom Nick to good effect, what make and size tablet are you using to edit your images Nick.

Oh man, Nick, I just subscribed recently, think I saw you in one of Mads’ videos? Anyway, this was SO incredibly helpful. I do use PS, but often I have hundreds of different travel photos to edit and just don’t have the time so I end up using LR more than I know I should. This was SO concise and well-explained and invaluable for times like those where LR is the way to go- thanks a million.

Great job Nick, although I would like to see how you would edit this photo in ps

You can still use a luminosity mask in either the radial tool or the graduated filters Nick. Just draw the filter and then go to the bottom of the adjustment panel, click on masking and select luminosity (or colour if you want). You can then adjust the mask to only target the light or dark etc and leave the innocent bystander pixels alone. This allows you to target specific areas just like in PS.

Great video. Very informative. You should have quickly covered the new useful feature "Filter range mask". Also there is a LR rule that states that if you sharpen your image (which introduces traces of both luminance and color noise), you should applied a noise reduction of "100 minus sharpen value". In your example, you applied 60% sharpening, noise reduction should have been 40%.