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[ 83 ]› › PHOTO EFFECTSADD FINISHING TOUCHES
Now that we’re done with the adjustments
that are specifically useful to northern lights
images, we can apply some final global
adjustments to add the finishing touches.
We’ve already applied a little contrast with
the Curves adjustment, but we can tweak the
Contrast slider in the Basic panel if it helps the
image. Something else that’s worth consider-
ation, particularly when there’s a strong green
color as in our northern lights, is to use the
HSL Adjustments panel. Using the Greens
sliders, add some Luminance and decrease
Saturation to make it a little more realistic. In
this image we set the Luminance to +20 and
the Saturation to –20.
Seeing and shooting the northern lights is
high up on many bucket lists, and I hope this
tutorial has been great fun. It’s a change from
regular landscape and nighttime retouching,
and shows some skills that can be applied to
aurora photography and may be transferred
to other images you take. n
ALL IMAGES BY DAVE WILLIAMS