Before
DEVELOPING THE SHOTKELBYONE.COMFor the best results, set the camera
on a tripod. If that isn’t possible, just try
to keep the camera as steady as possi-
ble. In this case, it will also be necessary
to select all the layers in Photoshop’s
Layers panel and go to Edit>Auto-Align
Layers prior to converting the layers to
a smart object in Step Eight.
I find the Median Stack Mode pro-
cessing method works well most of the
time, but as I point out below, you may
still end up with some blurry shadows.
For perfect results, you may need to do
what I did here and add an empty new
layer to the top of the layer stack and
use the Clone Stamp tool (S) or Spot
Healing Brush tool (J) in Photoshop to
tidy the final image. (KelbyOne members
can click here to download downsized
DNGs of these images to follow along.)THE STEPS
STEP ONE: To start, I took this image of
the Parliament building into Lightroom’s
Develop module and set about fixing the
biggest problem, which was to lighten
the bottom half of the scene. To do this
I added a couple of Graduated Filter (M)
adjustments and lightened the Exposure
and Shadows. The lower Graduated
Filter has the Exposure set at 0.28 and
Shadows at 67; the higher Graduated
Filter has the Exposure set at 0.70 and
Shadows at 35. Stacking and blending
the Graduate Filters in this way creates
more consistent lighting throughout the
entire foreground. To add more than
one Graduated Filter, simply click New
at the top of its panel on the right and
drag out another gradient.STEP TWO: Having balanced the exposure
between the foreground and the sky,
I adjusted the Basic panel Tone settings
as shown here to preserve the detail
in the Highlights and Shadows and set
the Whites and Blacks. I also adjusted
the Temp and Tint settings.ALL IMAGES BY MARTIN EVENING