Scott Davenport @scottdavenportphoto - Tumblr Blog

Posts

Lightroom’s New Feather & Edge Mask Controls Explained

#Tutorial

Use What Lightroom’s AI Landscape Mask Leaves Behind

#Tutorial

A Better Way to Add a Vignette to Black and White Photos

#Tutorial #Black & White

Embrace Constraints and Find the Photograph That Is There

#Tutorial #Black & White

When Lightroom Distraction Removal Is Too Aggressive

#Tutorial #Retouch

How to Fade an Adjustment with Intersect in ON1 Photo RAW

If you are trying ON1 Photo RAW, the ON1 plug-ins like ON1 Effects or ON1 HDR, or upgrading your ON1 software to a newer version, please consider using my affiliate link. There is no extra cost to you and it helps support my work and this website.

Sometimes a mask selects the right subject but applies the adjustment too evenly. You may want the full effect in one part of the selection and a gradual fade as it approaches another area.

A gradient seems like the obvious solution, but adding one can introduce a new problem: the adjustment spreads beyond the subject you originally selected. This is a good example of when Intersect mode becomes useful in ON1 Photo RAW.

When One Mask Isn’t Enough

In this photograph, the mountains on the right side of the frame have a hazy, slightly chalky appearance. I want to reduce that haze, deepen the midtones, and add a little structure and contrast.

Quick Mask AI gives me a good starting point by selecting the mountain areas. The selection isn’t perfect—it extends into some of the sunlit peaks—but it isolates enough of the scene for me to build the adjustment.

If I apply the adjustment evenly across the entire mask, the right side looks good. However, I don’t want the same strength carried all the way toward the light. I want the effect to be strongest in the shadowed mountains on the right and gradually fade as it moves left.

That is a directional problem, which makes a gradient a natural choice.

Why a Gradient Alone Doesn’t Solve the Problem

A gradient can create the fade I want, but by itself it has no understanding of the mountain selection. It simply extends across the image.

That means the same adjustments intended for the mountains can also affect the sky reflections, foreground, and other parts of the scene. The fade is correct, but the adjustment is no longer confined to the subject.

I could try to position the gradient more carefully or erase the unwanted areas afterward. However, that adds unnecessary cleanup and can make the mask more difficult to maintain.

A better approach is to let each mask do one job:

The AI mask identifies where the adjustment is allowed.

The gradient determines how the adjustment fades across that area.

Intersect combines those two instructions.

Understanding What Intersect Does

Intersect keeps only the area where two masks overlap.

Think of two overlapping circles in a Venn diagram. One circle represents the mountain selection. The other represents the gradient. Intersect discards everything except the shared area in the middle.

In this example, the Quick Mask AI selection establishes the boundaries of the mountains. The gradient establishes the direction and strength of the fade. When I change the gradient mask to Intersect mode, the adjustment is limited to the portion of the mountains that overlaps the gradient.

The gradient no longer changes the foreground or other parts of the photograph. At the same time, I can still reposition and reshape it to control exactly where the adjustment reaches full strength and how gently it fades away.

Building the Adjustment in Two Stages

I begin with the subject mask and make the local adjustments while watching the shadowed mountains. I lower the midtones, add a small amount of white and structure, reduce the haze, and introduce a little contrast.

At this point, I’m concentrating on the area where I want the adjustment to be strongest. I’m not worried yet about the fact that the AI selection reaches farther than I ultimately want.

Next, I add a gradient to the same local adjustment. I position it so the effect is strongest over the mountains on the right and fades toward the left. The gradient initially affects too much of the photograph, but switching its mode to Intersect immediately confines it to the original mountain selection.

From there, fine-tuning is straightforward. I can move the gradient, lengthen its transition, and decide where the adjustment should reach full strength without rebuilding the AI mask.

Match the Mask to the Light

The real value of this technique isn’t simply cleaner masking. It gives the adjustment a better relationship with the light in the photograph.

The mountains on the right are in deeper shadow, while the peaks toward the left are receiving more light. Applying the same correction everywhere would flatten that natural transition. Fading the adjustment lets me improve the hazy area without making the entire mountain range look artificially uniform.

That is an important part of selective editing. The goal isn’t always to apply an effect perfectly evenly. Often, the photograph looks more natural when the mask follows the direction, quality, and strength of the existing light.

When to Use This Technique

Intersect is worth considering whenever one mask gives you the correct subject and another gives you the correct transition.

A subject or AI mask is useful for defining boundaries. A gradient is useful for controlling direction and falloff. A luminosity mask can isolate a tonal range. Intersect lets those different types of masks work together instead of asking one mask to solve the entire problem.

You don’t need Intersect for every adjustment. Many basic masking jobs can be handled directly with the masking tools. It becomes valuable when you need to preserve one selection while refining where or how strongly the adjustment appears within it.

Final Thoughts

The key idea is simple: use one mask to define the subject and another to shape the adjustment within that subject.

In this example, Intersect combines the precision of an AI mountain mask with the smooth transition of a gradient. The adjustment stays where it belongs, fades in a way that matches the light, and remains easy to refine.

#Tutorial

ON1 Masking Panel Explained (And Why You Rarely Need It)

#Tutorial #Masking

The Final 5%: Make Black & White Details Pop With Intersect Masks

If you enjoy posts like this, please support my work and support independent photography tutorials like this.

When editing black and white photographs, most of the heavy lifting happens early. We establish the tonal structure, shape the contrast, and guide the viewer through the scene. But the difference between a good image and a finished image often comes from a handful of subtle refinements made at the very end. I think of these as the final 5%—small adjustments that help important details stand out without changing the overall feel of the photograph.

One technique I use frequently is combining a Luminance Range Mask with an intersected Brush Mask. The luminance range targets the brightness values I want to work with, while the brush lets me precisely select the specific objects that deserve a little extra attention. In the examples from this video, I use the technique to accent street signs in an urban scene and highlight key architectural details in a monument. The result isn't dramatic or flashy. It's simply a more intentional photograph where the viewer's eye lands exactly where I want it to. Sometimes those small finishing touches are what bring an image to life.

#Tutorial

Using Harsh Light to Shape the View in an Alley Scene

If you enjoy posts like this, please support my work and support independent photography tutorials like this.

City light is rarely perfect, and in this case it wasn’t trying to be. This alley in Denver had harsh, direct light with strong contrast and bright highlights pushing toward the end of the frame. Instead of working against it, I leaned into what was already there—the direction of the light and the natural leading line of the alley itself.

In Lightroom, the key adjustment was a simple radial mask placed along the alley to guide attention forward. From there, I increased clarity and texture to strengthen the localized contrast in the brickwork and ground surface. That combination doesn’t just add detail—it reinforces structure, helping the eye travel naturally down the frame toward the brighter light at the end of the alley.

#Tutorial

Soften Water To Make Your Subject Stand Out

If you enjoy posts like this, please support my work and support independent photography tutorials like this.

When we photograph landscapes, water often becomes an automatic point of attention. Reflections, highlights, and texture can naturally draw the eye. Sometimes that's exactly what we want. Other times, the water is simply part of the scene, and the real subject is something else entirely.

In the photo I'm working on here, the subject isn't the lake. It's the snow-covered log and rock in the foreground. The water serves as context, but it doesn't deserve equal visual weight. By softening and downplaying the water, I can guide the viewer's attention toward the elements that matter most. The technique is simple and can be accomplished in Lightroom or any editor that offers masking tools and local contrast controls.

Create a Mask for the Water

The first step is to isolate the water so adjustments only affect that portion of the image. Modern editing tools make this remarkably easy. In Lightroom, I can use the AI-powered masking tools to automatically select the water. Other applications such as Luminar and ON1 Photo RAW offer similar capabilities.

The automatic selection usually gets me most of the way there, but I rarely accept the mask exactly as generated. I'll spend a few moments cleaning up the edges and removing areas that shouldn't be included in the adjustment. Taking the time to refine the mask ensures that the edits remain natural and don't accidentally affect important foreground elements.

Once the mask is complete, I have a dedicated selection that allows me to shape the visual importance of the water independently from the rest of the photograph.

Reduce Local Contrast

With the water isolated, I turn my attention to local contrast. In Lightroom, this means the Clarity and Texture sliders. Other software packages may call it Structure or Dynamic Contrast, but the goal is the same.

Water often contains countless small details, ripples, reflections, and edges that attract attention. By reducing local contrast, those details become softer and less prominent. The water begins to recede into the scene rather than competing with the subject.

I typically push these controls farther than I might during a global adjustment. Since the effect is confined to the water mask, I can be more aggressive without negatively affecting the rest of the image. As the local contrast decreases, the water becomes smoother and visually quieter, allowing the viewer's attention to settle elsewhere.

Lower the Exposure

After softening the water, I often make a subtle exposure adjustment. Lowering exposure effectively burns down the selected area, reducing its visual brightness and helping it play a supporting role within the composition.

Brightness naturally attracts attention. If the water is brighter than the subject, it can become a distraction even after reducing local contrast. A modest exposure reduction helps restore balance and creates separation between the subject and its surroundings.

In this image, darkening the water not only reduced distractions but also enhanced the perception of depth. The foreground log and rock gained more visual prominence, while the lake receded into the middle ground. The result is a stronger sense of three-dimensionality and a clearer visual hierarchy.

Final Thoughts

This technique is less about editing water and more about directing attention. Whenever you have a landscape where water isn't the primary subject, consider whether it's competing for attention that should belong elsewhere. By creating a water mask, reducing local contrast, and lowering exposure, you can simplify the scene and strengthen your composition.

The goal is always the same: make it easier for viewers to see what attracted you to the photograph in the first place. In this case, that snow-dusted fallen log becomes the clear focal point, and the water settles into its proper supporting role.

#Tutorial

Flat Light? Create Directional Light in Lightroom

Every landscape photographer runs into this situation eventually. You arrive at a location with a great subject, interesting weather, and plenty of potential, but the light just never comes together. Maybe the clouds refuse to break at the right moment. Maybe the sun is in the wrong position. Maybe the conditions are simply dull.

That was the case with this cathedral image near Rocky Mountain National Park. The structure itself was fantastic, and the sky had enough texture to keep things interesting, but the scene never received the kind of light I had hoped for. There was no dramatic shaft of sunlight illuminating the cathedral. No spotlight effect from the clouds. Just flat, even light across most of the frame.

Rather than abandon the image, I started thinking about what the scene wanted to become. The brightest part of the sky was in the upper-left corner, suggesting the sun was somewhere behind the clouds trying to break through. That became the foundation for the edit. Instead of inventing light from nowhere, I decided to shape and enhance what was already implied in the photograph.

The final result came from a balance of darkening and lightening. One set of masks subtly pushed parts of the image into shadow. Another created the feeling of directional light moving through the scene toward the cathedral. Those two adjustments work together to create the illusion of depth, drama, and atmosphere.

Darkening the Scene to Shape the Viewer’s Attention

Before adding light, I wanted to establish where the light was not going. That’s an important part of creating believable directional light. If everything stays evenly bright, the effect falls apart immediately.

The first major adjustment in this edit was what I called a “right-biased vignette.” Instead of applying a traditional centered vignette, I used several large linear gradients to darken the right side and lower portion of the image. The goal was to guide the eye back toward the cathedral and the brighter sky in the upper-left corner.

The mask itself was intentionally loose. I wasn’t trying to perfectly trace the edges of the building or mountains. Light in nature doesn’t behave with surgical precision. It fades gradually, spills into neighboring areas, and transitions softly. Allowing the gradients to overlap naturally helped preserve that feeling.

Most of the adjustment was simple exposure reduction, but I also introduced a very subtle cool tone into the darker areas. It’s barely noticeable on its own, but it becomes important later when warmer light is introduced into the cathedral and surrounding sky. That slight temperature contrast helps reinforce the illusion that warm sunlight is entering the scene from one direction while cooler shadows occupy the rest of the landscape.

This darkening step is easy to underestimate because it doesn’t feel dramatic by itself. But it establishes the stage for everything that follows. Without controlled shadow areas, the brighter portions of the image would never feel directional.

Creating the Illusion of Directional Light

Once the darker portions of the scene were established, I could begin building the light itself.

The main directional light mask started with a radial gradient placed in the upper-left portion of the frame where the brightest clouds already existed. That radial created the general spread of light moving diagonally through the image toward the cathedral. On its own, though, the shape felt too broad and too circular.

To refine it, I subtracted linear gradients from the top and bottom portions of the radial mask. That compressed the shape into something that felt more like guided light instead of a soft glowing oval. The transitions remained feathered and natural, but the light now had a more intentional direction flowing through the scene.

The final refinement came from a luminance range mask. I didn’t want deep shadows receiving the same brightening treatment as the naturally illuminated portions of the cathedral. By subtracting the darker tones from the mask, the effect concentrated itself on midtones and highlights where sunlight would realistically appear.

The actual adjustments inside the mask were relatively restrained: a bit of exposure increase and a subtle push toward warmth. Those two ingredients alone created most of the effect. The warmer tones helped the red and orange stonework come alive, while the added brightness established the feeling that sunlight was finally breaking through the clouds and striking the cathedral.

That interplay between darkness and light is what ultimately sells the effect.

One final refinement that helped tie the entire edit together was Lightroom’s Amount slider for masks. After building both the vignette and directional light adjustments, I revisited the masks and pushed their overall strength further than my original settings. Increasing the amount of the darkening mask deepened the shadows and strengthened the mood, while boosting the directional light mask intensified the feeling of sunlight breaking through the clouds.

That balance between the two masks became the final tuning step. Sometimes the structure of the masks is already working well, but the emotional impact simply needs a little more emphasis. The Amount slider is an easy way to fine-tune that relationship without rebuilding the masks themselves.

Light Is About Direction, Not Just Brightness

When photographers talk about great light, we often focus on intensity. But direction matters just as much.

A scene with soft, flat illumination can still become compelling if you create a sense of movement and flow with the light. In this cathedral image, the entire edit revolved around strengthening the implied direction already present in the sky and then supporting it with carefully shaped masks.

The important thing is that none of these adjustments were random. Every darkened area helped support the brighter areas. Every brighter area reinforced the intended path of light through the composition. The result feels more dramatic not because the image became brighter overall, but because the light now has purpose.

Flat light doesn’t always mean the image failed. Sometimes it simply means the photograph still has room to be crafted.

#Tutorial

The Lightroom HDR Trick That Improves SDR Editing

Sometimes the most useful Lightroom tools are the ones hiding in plain sight. HDR editing mode is a good example. Most photographers think of it strictly as an HDR workflow feature, but there’s a practical benefit even if you’re creating a standard SDR image. The trick is using the Visualize HDR option to reveal exactly where the brightest highlights in your photo live. Instead of guessing where your brightest brights are supposed to land, Lightroom gives you a clear visual map of those peak highlight areas.

That becomes incredibly useful when shaping light and balancing tone. In the example from the video, the SDR histogram still had room to stretch farther to the right, but simply pushing Whites globally wasn’t the right answer. Visualize HDR made it obvious that the brightest cloud formations and reflections were the areas that needed attention. From there, it was a matter of using a luminance range mask to selectively target those highlights and guide the eye naturally through the frame. A small exposure boost, a little extra white point, and even a touch of reduced saturation helped those brightest areas feel luminous without looking forced.

What I like most about this technique is that it works whether you edit HDR photos or not. Even on an SDR monitor, the HDR visualization tools can give you better feedback about your tonal structure and help you make smarter masking decisions. It’s less about creating an HDR image and more about understanding where the light should live in your photograph. And when you can see that clearly, the rest of the edit tends to fall into place much more naturally.

#Tutorial

Masking Gets Easier When You Think in Segments

If you enjoy posts like this, please support my work and support independent photography tutorials like this.

Masking gets a lot easier once you stop thinking about masking tools first.

That sounds a little backwards, I know, because most of the software we use pushes us immediately toward the tools. Brush. Linear gradient. AI sky mask. Color range. Subject detection. All useful things, certainly. Yet I find that the quality of the mask usually comes down to how I’m thinking about the photograph before I create anything at all.

When I approach an image, I like to think about it in segments. Not just objects in the scene, but several different dimensions of the photograph layered together. Once you start working this way, you spend less time fighting with masks and more time making useful adjustments.

And honestly, that’s the whole point.

Looking Beyond “What’s in the Photo?”

The most obvious way to think about segmentation is simply identifying the things in the scene. Sky. Water. Trees. Snow. Mountains. Buildings. Foreground subjects. If you’re using Lightroom, ON1, or any modern editor with AI masking, those categories are probably already sitting there waiting for you.

That’s the easy starting point, and there’s nothing wrong with it. In fact, for many photos, it’s enough.

But the real power comes when you start thinking beyond objects and begin considering tonal and color relationships as well.

In black and white work especially, luminosity becomes an incredibly useful way to think about masking. Instead of asking yourself what something is, ask where it lives tonally. Are you dealing with deep shadows? Midtones? Highlights? Bright isolated areas? Sometimes the tonal structure of a scene is more important than the actual objects themselves.

Color can work the same way. Warm tones versus cool tones. Greens against blues. Earth tones against brighter accents. Even subtle color separation can become a fast way to isolate portions of a photograph without complicated masking work.

And then there’s subject emphasis, which is really where all of this starts to come together. At some point the question stops being “what can I select?” and becomes “what actually matters in this image?” That shift changes how you build masks entirely.

Building a Mask With Broad Strokes First

I was editing a black and white forest scene recently where this segmented approach made the masking process much simpler than I expected.

The image had a fallen log extending over the water, with a dense group of trees on the right side of the frame. What I wanted to do was fairly modest: add some texture and clarity to the trees, the shoreline, and the foreground subject while leaving the background, water and sky untouched.

The obvious approach would have been to start with AI selections for vegetation and snow, then clean up the leftover areas with brushwork. That certainly would have worked. But once I stepped back and thought about the image in segments, another option became much faster.

Instead of starting with object selections, I started with broad spatial areas of the frame.

The first mask component was a linear gradient pulled in from the right side of the photograph. I intentionally let it overlap into the sky because precision didn’t matter yet. I was simply establishing the general region I wanted to work within.

The second step was to add another linear gradient, this time coming upward from the bottom of the frame. That helped target the shoreline area and the fallen log extending over the water. Again, the goal wasn’t accuracy at this stage. The goal was coverage.

At that point the mask was technically selecting far too much of the image, but that’s exactly where the segmentation approach becomes useful.

Rather than refining with tedious brushwork, I simply subtracted the water and subtracted the sky using AI masking tools. In just a few clicks, the oversized gradients collapsed into a mask that isolated the trees on the right side of the frame along with the foreground shoreline and subject.

The entire process took far less effort than trying to build the mask piece by piece from the start. I was done in 15 seconds or less.

Why Perfect Masks Usually Don’t Matter

One of the traps photographers fall into with masking is chasing perfection too early in the process. We zoom in to 300%, obsess over tiny transitions, and spend several minutes fixing areas that may never even be visible in the final image. I know I’m guilty of that!

Yet often it’s the adjustment itself determines how precise the mask actually needs to be.

In this case, I was applying moderate texture and clarity adjustments. A few tiny imperfections hidden in deep shadow areas simply didn’t matter visually. Had I been making a dramatic tonal shift or strong color change, then perhaps additional cleanup would have been necessary. But for this edit, the broad segmented approach was more than sufficient.

That’s one of the reasons I like working this way. It keeps the focus on the photograph rather than the mechanics of the software.

A Smarter Masking Mindset

The takeaway here is not the exact mask combination I used. It’s the mindset behind it.

When you start thinking about a photograph in layers of objects, luminosity, color, and subject emphasis, masking becomes much more flexible. You stop relying on a single tool to solve everything and instead start combining simple selections in smarter ways.

Quite often, the fastest path to a good mask is starting broad and refining later rather than trying to be surgically precise from the very beginning.

That shift alone can dramatically speed up your editing workflow while producing better results at the same time.

#Tutorial #Masking

Winter Chill Look for Landscape Photos in ON1 Effects

A winter scene usually isn’t about bold color or dramatic contrast. It’s about atmosphere. Soft light, muted tones, quiet detail, and a feeling that the landscape has settled into stillness. That was the direction I wanted to take with this photo from Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.

The RAW file already had a strong foundation to work from. Fog drifted through the trees, the light was naturally diffused, and the scene carried that cold mountain air feeling. But the straight-out-of-camera version didn’t fully communicate the mood I experienced standing there. The edit became less about correcting the image and more about shaping the emotional feel of the scene.

Using ON1 Effects, I built what I’m calling a “Winter Chill” look through a handful of subtle adjustments layered together carefully. None of the edits were extreme on their own. The mood came together through several small choices all pushing the image in the same direction.

Curves: Cooling with the Blue Channel

The first major adjustment came from the Color Curve, specifically working in the blue channel. Instead of focusing on tonal contrast, I used the curve to shift the color balance colder by pushing the blue channel upward.

When you raise the blue curve, you’re adding blue into the image while simultaneously reducing yellow. That simple adjustment immediately starts cooling the scene and changing the emotional feel of the photograph. The fog, water, and shaded areas all began taking on a colder winter atmosphere without looking overly processed.

What I like about using the color channels in Curves is how natural the effect can feel. It’s not the same as dragging a temperature slider aggressively cooler. The adjustment can be more selective and nuanced, especially when you work gently. A small move in the blue channel often creates a much more believable cold-weather mood.

Color Mixer: Pulling Back Saturation

After cooling the image, the next step was simplifying the color palette using Color Mixer. The original image contained more warmth and color intensity than I wanted for the final mood.

Rather than adding color, I actually desaturated portions of the scene. Pulling back the greens and warmer tones helped reinforce the colder atmosphere and kept the viewer’s attention on the mist, light, and texture instead of colorful distractions. Winter landscapes often benefit from a quieter palette. Less color can create a stronger emotional response than more color.

This adjustment also helped prepare the image for the later color grading work by giving me a cleaner, more neutral starting point.

Pro tip: When you’re designing a preset, push the sliders a little farther than you normally would. Then you can use the Opacity slider to dial back the strength to suit different photos. Presets are rarely one size fits all.

Color Grading: Refining the Winter Feel

By the time I reached Color Grading, the image already had the overall winter mood established from the earlier adjustments. This step wasn’t about making a dramatic transformation. It was more about refining and tightening up the feel of the scene.

I used Color Grading to make subtle tweaks to the existing cool tones, mainly nudging the shadows and midtones a little further into that cold winter atmosphere. Small adjustments here go a long way. It doesn’t take much before an image starts feeling artificial or overly stylized.

What I wanted was consistency. The fog, water, trees, and light all needed to feel like they belonged in the same cold environment. The grading simply helped unify those elements a bit more cleanly and reinforce the mood that was already taking shape.

This is one of those situations where restraint matters more than intensity. The best winter edits often come from gentle refinements instead of heavy-handed effects.

Color Enhancer: Adding the Purple Tint

The final styling touch came from another pass through Color Enhancer, this time introducing a subtle purple-magenta tint into the image.

It’s a small adjustment, but it adds character to the final result. Snow, fog, and diffused winter light can naturally pick up slight magenta and violet tones under certain conditions, so the effect still feels believable while adding a bit more mood and personality.

Most viewers probably won’t consciously identify the purple tint, but they’ll feel the difference it creates. It helps separate the image from a standard cool-toned edit and gives the scene a more cinematic winter atmosphere.

Small Adjustments, Unified Mood

What I like most about this edit is how understated the individual adjustments are. No single filter dominates the process. The final look comes from layering several restrained edits together so they all support the same mood.

That’s often the difference between an image that simply looks edited and one that actually feels atmospheric. Every adjustment should reinforce the story the scene is trying to tell.

#Tutorial #Effects

Live Edit! Unscripted & Uncut | Bear Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park

Rocky Mountain National Park gave me a whole lot of weather on this visit. Thick fog. Low visibility. Light mist hanging through the trees around Bear Lake. Not exactly postcard conditions.

But honestly, those kinds of mornings can be really rewarding for landscape photography if you stop chasing grand scenic views and pay attention to the smaller details instead.

In this case, it was the rocks and reflections that grabbed my attention. The mountains completely disappeared into the fog, but the foreground had these nice repeating rock shapes leading into the misty shoreline and evergreens beyond. Quiet scene. Subtle scene. The kind of image that lives or dies based on careful editing.

For this tutorial, I did a true start-to-finish live edit. No prep work. No rehearsed sequence. I opened the image for the first time, hit record, and worked through the photo naturally as ideas came to mind.

Image Assessment

Whenever I begin an edit, I spend a minute figuring out what the photo is really about. Here, the subject is the arrangement of rocks and reflections inside that foggy atmosphere. The mist creates the mood, but the rocks give the viewer something to settle into.

A few things stood out immediately:

The image needed leveling

A couple of sensor dust spots needed cleanup

The foreground rocks at the very bottom were a little too dominant

The scene needed more depth and separation

The overall direction became pretty clear right away. Preserve the soft atmosphere while guiding the eye toward the center grouping of rocks and reflections.

Crop, Straighten, and Retouch

The first step was getting the composition cleaned up. I straightened the image using the far shoreline as my reference point. The shoreline naturally curves a little, so this wasn’t about making everything perfectly geometric. It just needed to feel visually balanced.

Then I tightened the crop slightly from the bottom. Those large foreground rocks help place you in the scene, but too much foreground weight started competing with the actual subject.

After that, I cleaned up a couple of sensor dust spots. Not exciting work, but definitely necessary before moving deeper into tonal adjustments.

Tonal Adjustments

From there, I moved into the global tonal work. I started with automatic adjustments and the camera profile just to establish a baseline. Then I worked the image from there instead of trying to force a specific look onto it. One thing I wanted to preserve was the cool, damp feeling from that morning. It would’ve been very easy to overdo contrast or dehaze and completely lose the atmosphere.

So the adjustments stayed fairly restrained:

Moderate contrast

Small clarity adjustments

Minimal texture globally

Very gentle curve shaping

Actually adding a touch of haze back into the image

That last part mattered. Sometimes photographers immediately reach for Dehaze anytime fog appears in a photo. But atmosphere was the entire point of this scene. Removing too much haze would’ve worked against the image.

The tone curve helped deepen the reflections in the water and add separation without making the photo feel crunchy or overprocessed.

Background and Subject Detail

Once the global adjustments felt solid, I moved into selective masking.

The trees in the background needed a little texture and clarity to define their shape through the fog. The subject rocks in the water also benefited from some added texture to help them stand apart from the softer surroundings. At the same time, I intentionally avoided adding detail to the foreground rocks closest to the camera. I didn’t want viewers lingering there. That’s one of the big advantages of selective editing. You can decide exactly where detail belongs instead of applying everything globally.

I also spent some time enhancing the thin fog bank sitting along the shoreline. Brightening that area slightly helped create another layer of depth in the scene without calling attention to the adjustment itself.

Shaping Depth and Dimension

The final stage of the edit was really about visual flow. I used a combination of radial gradients, luminosity masks, and subtle darkening in the lower corners to push attention inward toward the reflections and central rocks. I also deepened parts of the reflections slightly to create better separation between the water, shoreline, and background trees. One of the very last adjustments was selectively deepening shadows in portions of the distant tree line. Tiny adjustment. Barely noticeable if you look at the slider values. But visually it helped anchor the background and keep the image from feeling too flat.

That’s often how these edits work. Not one giant dramatic adjustment. Just a lot of small decisions stacking together.

Final Thoughts

This photo is a good reminder that difficult weather doesn’t automatically mean bad conditions for photography. Bear Lake wasn’t giving me dramatic mountain vistas that morning. The fog erased most of the landscape. But the softer atmosphere created an opportunity for a quieter image built around mood, shape, reflections, and depth.

And honestly, that’s why I enjoy doing these live edits.

You get to see the experimentation. The second-guessing. The moments of having an idea, trying it out, and seeing if it works. That’s the real editing process. Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop chasing perfection and simply respond to what the scene is giving you.

#Tutorial #Live Edit

Add Realistic Fog in ON1 Effects

There’s a point where adding fog stops being about sliders and starts being about control.

In this tutorial, I’m working with the Weather filter in ON1 Effects to introduce a foggy mood into a landscape. It’s a solid tool on its own—plenty of controls for distance, transition, and overall look. But if you stop there, the effect can feel a bit uniform. Fog doesn’t behave that way in the real world. It builds, it fades, and it interacts with depth in the scene.

That’s where masking comes in—specifically the Depth Mask. This is what lets us take a good effect and shape it into something believable.

Start with the Weather Filter

The first step is straightforward: add fog using the Weather filter. I typically:

Start with a fog-based preset (like “Foghorn”)

Turn off any extra preset styling to keep things clean

Adjust the Distance so the fog sits where I want it in the scene

Increase the Transition for a smoother fade

At this stage, the effect is doing its job—the entire scene gets a foggy treatment. But that’s also the problem. It’s too even. The midground isn’t separating from the background the way I want, and the subject—this small farmhouse—needs more attention.

Use A Depth Mask to Shape the Fog

This is where things get interesting. The Depth Mask analyzes the scene and builds a mask based on distance from the camera. Instead of manually painting selections, you’re working with depth information.

A couple of key ideas:

White reveals the effect (fog)

Black protects from the effect

Once the depth mask is applied, for a foggy scene I’ll almost always invert it. That flips the logic so the fog is applied to the background instead of the foreground. From there, it’s a visual process:

Adjust the Distance slider to push fog deeper into the scene

Aim for darker tones (less fog) in the foreground

Keep brighter tones (more fog) in the background

You’ll see the image start to separate—foreground clears up, background recedes. That’s the natural depth you’re after.

Soften the Transition

Even with a good depth mask, edges can feel a little abrupt. Inside the mask refinement controls, I’ll add Feathering. This doesn’t soften the photo—it softens the mask itself. The result is a much more gradual transition between areas with and without fog.

It’s a subtle adjustment, but it makes a big difference. Fog should feel diffused, not cut out.

Bring the Subject Back with Local Masking

At this point, the fog is sitting nicely in the background—but the farmhouse is getting lost more than I’d like. So I’ll refine the mask further:

Add a new mask layer

Use Quick Mask AI to select the house

Subtract fog from that area

That gives me control, but at full strength it looks artificial—the subject may pop out too cleanly. The fix is simple: lower the mask density. This lets some fog remain over your subject, just enough to keep it grounded in the scene while still drawing attention. It’s a balance—too much removal and it looks cut out, too little and it disappears.

Key Takeaways

The Weather filter is a great starting point, but it’s only step one

Depth Mask lets you shape fog based on distance for a more natural look

Inverting the mask is often necessary to push fog into the background

Feathering the mask creates smoother, more realistic transitions

Local masking (like Quick Mask AI) helps refine key subjects without overdoing it

Final Thoughts

What I like about this workflow is that it stays flexible. You’re not locked into what the filter gives you—you’re building on top of it. Fog is one of those effects that can quickly look overdone. But when you combine the controls the Weather filter already gives you with depth-aware masking, you can guide it into something that feels like it belongs in the scene.

That’s the goal every time—use the tools, but don’t let the tools dictate the result.

#Tutorial #Effects #Fog

Lightroom's HDR Editing Explained – Is It Worth It?

In my last several posts, I’ve explored how Lightroom’s HDR editing tools work, how to export HDR images, how the HDR Limit slider behaves, and how Lightroom maps those brighter tones for HDR-capable displays. Those tools open up some interesting possibilities, especially in scenes with bright highlights that benefit from greater tonal separation. But after learning the mechanics, the more practical question is whether HDR editing is always worth using.

The answer is no.

HDR editing can produce beautiful results, but it is not automatically the best choice for every image or every workflow. Like any editing tool, its value depends on the image in front of you and the final result you want to create. Sometimes HDR brings an image to life in a way SDR simply cannot. Other times, the HDR version adds brightness without adding anything meaningful to the photograph. That is why the real question is not whether HDR is available, but whether it improves the image enough to justify the trade-offs that come with it.

Not Every Image Needs HDR

One of the first lessons that comes with using HDR editing is that brighter highlights do not automatically make for a better photograph. Some scenes genuinely benefit from the expanded range. Sunlight filtering through clouds, bright reflections on water, glowing snow, or other naturally luminous subjects can take on an added sense of realism when those highlights are given more room to breathe.

But not every image gains something from that extra brightness. In some cases, the SDR version preserves the mood of the scene more effectively. A softer sky or more restrained highlights can feel more natural and more aligned with the intent of the photograph, while the HDR version, despite technically showing a wider range, may pull too much attention to the brightest areas.

That’s why HDR editing works best when it serves the image rather than when it is applied as a default. The presence of additional dynamic range is not itself the goal. The goal is to create the strongest version of the photograph, and sometimes that means the SDR edit is the better choice. HDR editing is another creative option, but like any option, it should be used deliberately.

Printing and Plugins Add Complexity

Even when HDR improves the image on screen, there are still practical considerations that affect the workflow. The most obvious is printing.

An HDR display can reproduce brightness values well beyond what paper can render, so when an HDR-edited image is prepared for print, that expanded tonal range has to be compressed back into SDR. Lightroom’s SDR rendition controls help manage that transition, but they do not eliminate the extra work involved. Highlights that look luminous and separated on an HDR monitor need to be mapped carefully into a much smaller tonal range for print, which means more time spent soft proofing and refining how those tones translate to paper.

That does not mean HDR-edited images cannot print well. They can. But it does mean that printing from an HDR workflow often requires more attention and more adjustments than starting with an SDR edit designed for print from the beginning. If the final destination is paper, an SDR workflow may be simpler and more predictable.

A similar limitation appears when HDR images leave Adobe’s ecosystem. Lightroom and Photoshop preserve HDR information, but many third-party plugins do not. When an HDR-edited image is sent to one of those plugins, the expanded HDR range is often reduced back to SDR. The image still moves through the workflow, but the HDR highlight detail you created may be lost in the process.

For photographers who rely on external tools, this matters. It means HDR editing is not always seamless in a mixed workflow, and the benefits of HDR may disappear as soon as the image leaves Lightroom or Photoshop. That does not make plugins unusable, but it does make HDR less flexible when your process depends on software that does not yet support it.

Use HDR When It Adds Value

All of this leads back to a simple conclusion: HDR editing is a useful tool, but it comes with trade-offs. It can improve certain images in meaningful ways, particularly on HDR-capable displays where brighter highlights can add realism and presence. At the same time, it can complicate printing workflows and create compatibility issues when external plugins are part of the process.

None of that diminishes the value of HDR editing. It simply means it should be used intentionally. The goal is not to edit every image in HDR just because the option exists. The goal is to recognize when HDR adds something worthwhile to the image and when an SDR workflow is the better fit.

That is really the larger takeaway from this series. HDR editing is not about chasing brighter highlights for the sake of brightness. It is about understanding the tools well enough to know when they help, when they create unnecessary complexity, and how they fit into the broader process of making photographs.

Once you approach HDR that way, it becomes what it should be: another creative option in the toolkit, useful when it serves the image and easy to leave aside when it does not.

And in the end, that is what matters most — not whether an image was edited in HDR or SDR, but whether the editing choices support the photograph.

#Tutorial

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Scott Davenport