Focus of Episode: Basic Lightroom Edit

In this episode of The FIX, I show you the editing behind a shot that was posted as Photo of the Week on January 29th called Haifoss Waterfall in Iceland. I took the photo in the summer of 2016 on a trip to Iceland with my friend Ryan.

Iceland is one of my favourite countries that I’ve ever been to, and part of the reason for this is the abundance of massive waterfalls. Everywhere you go, it seems that you’re never far from humungous waterfalls that would dwarf waterfalls anywhere else in the world. This one, called Haifoss, is in the middle of nowhere in a seemingly flat and bleak landscape and you only see it once you’re right on top of it. There is a massive fissure in the ground and the water pours over one side of it and falls unimpeded all of the way to the bottom. The main focus of the editing on this one is bringing out the natural and earthy colours of the cliff face and surrounding green landscape.

The editing of the photo is very simple and is done solely in Lightroom. I start out with a basic edit to get the entire image looking roughly how I want it. And then I dig into the local adjustments to tweak small areas of the photo separately. There is some work done with radial filters, graduated filters, and some brushing.