Processing notes for Woodland Ways ...

Below are a few quick tips to processing your autumn woodland images.

The techniques below relate to Lightroom

• The first thing to do is correct the exposure if needed and use the shadow and highlight sliders to correct any detail lost within these areas.

• Whilst still in the basic development panel I usually set either the Texture or clarity slider to about -27. This has a pleasant 'softening' effect which is ideal for woodlands. Don’t overdo it as it will go all mushy!

• For Autumn I always recommend shooting using cloudy white balance (6000-6500k). This warmer white balance can sometimes have an effect on the neutral grey of beech tree trunks which can begin to look overly warm. I therefore find dropping it down to about 5000k corrects this warm cast. Unfortunately this then effects the yellows and oranges. I then open the HSL panel and increase the saturation of both the orange and yellow to counteract this. You can also tweak the greens to taste at this stage.

• In the Effects panel I normally add a very subtle vignette, about -16. This has the effect of drawing your eye towards the centre of the image. Don't overdo the vignette!

• Sometimes woodland images may include a path with a pool of light at the far end. To try and accentuate this and even introduce a slight misty effect I do the following. Select the Radial filter. Zero all the previous settings and set the sliders to -25 Contrast and -30 Dehaze. Apply to the area you have identified.

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The techniques below relate to Photoshop

• Photoshop is best used for cloning out distracting elements, paying particular attention to stray elements on the very edges of the frame.

• One of the biggest distractions in woodland images are those small white gaps in the tree canopy caused by a bright sky. One of the best methods of alleviating these distractions is as follows:

- Create a new blank layer and set the layer blending mode to 'darken'.

- Select the cloning tool and set the opacity to 80%, making sure that the 'above and below' box is ticked.

- On the new blank layer clone parts of the main image into those bright gaps. I find selecting an area that approximately matches the surrounding area around the gaps works well.

- Once you have finished flatten the image.

N.B. The above only works well on small areas, it is extremely difficult to clone over large areas of sky and the final result may show cloning artefacts.