post-production editing
- With the image now looking a lot more dramatic all that remains is to put a few fi nishing touches
to the mood masterpiece. To increase the fi re in the sky I have decided to add another adjustment
layer. This time I have selected a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. To restrict the adjustment
to a localized area I have switched back to the Black, White gradient and chosen the Refl ected
gradient option and selected the Reverse option. Dragging a gradient from the horizon line to a
short distance above or below the horizon line will create a narrow band of adjusted pixels, leaving
the sky at the top of the image and the foreground unaffected. - The fi nal dramatic touch is to render the highlights pin sharp. My preferred sharpening method
is to merge all of the visible elements to a new layer positioned on top of the layers stack. I apply a
generous amount (amount but not radius) of sharpening and then produce a test strip. If the print
fi le is too sharp I can lower the opacity of this layer until I strike the correct amount of sharpening.
A useful keyboard shortcut to merge all of the visible elements to a new layer is to hold down the
Ctrl+Shift+Alt keys and then type the letter N followed by the letter E (whilst still holding down the
three modifi er keys). The amount I elected to use for this image was 150% at a radius of 0.8. A
threshold value of 3 prevents the noise or fi lm grain from becoming an issue.