Capturing Blue Hour in Landscape Photography https://petapixel.com/2025/03/19/capturing-blue-hour-in-landscape-photography/ #landscapephotography #andrealivieri #Tutorials #landscape #bluehour

Vision: The Most Important Skill in Photo Editing https://petapixel.com/2024/04/07/vision-the-most-important-skill-in-photo-editing/ #Post-Processing #andrealivieri #photoediting #Inspiration #editing #vision #Tips

6 Photo Editing Mistakes That Make Your Landscape Photos Look Amateur https://petapixel.com/2024/02/04/6-photo-editing-mistakes-i-wish-i-was-warned-about-earlier/ #Post-Processing #postprocessing #andrealivieri #Tutorials #mistakes #tutorial #editing #warning #Tips #psa

Visual Balance: The Composition Technique That Changed My Photos https://petapixel.com/2024/01/21/visual-balance-the-composition-technique-that-changed-my-photos/ #andrealivieri #visualbalance #composition #Tutorials #technique #examples #tutorial #balance

Why Your Wide-Angle Lens Images Are So Boring https://petapixel.com/2024/01/14/why-your-wide-angle-lens-images-are-so-boring/ #landscapephotography #andrealivieri #Walkthroughs #composition #Tutorials #landscape #wideangle #tutorial

How to Shoot Landscape Panoramas with a Telephoto Lens

#tutorials #andrealivieri #howto #landscape #landscapephotography #panorama #stitched #telephoto #tutorial

How to Use Curves Effectively in Capture One 22

The Tone Curve in Capture One 22 is by far my favorite tool to edit images, but it's usually one of the most difficult commands to get to grips with. It can definitely be one of your most valuable assets if you want to improve your editing skills.

It's designed to allow you to modify the various light levels found within an image in a way that will give you greater control over the tonal range and contrast of your photograph.

What the Curves Tool Is

The Curves tool is a huge topic, so I will not discuss all its color features, and I’d rather prefer to stay focused just on how to manipulate brightness and contrast, giving you a sort of formula to target the adjustments based on the image content in order to maximize the contrast without introducing weird flat area with no details.

The Curves tool is really about contrast. Contrast defines the relationship between the tones in your photo, and it’s really the difference between bright and dark you have in any area of your picture.

A high-contrast image will generally have strong shadows and highlights, with a lot of saturation, whereas, low contrast photos will look flatter.

The Curves Tool in Capture One 22

Capture One provides two different types of curves, and it’s one of the main aspects that differentiates Capture One from other software. It has the RGB curve , which changes the contrast of the image affecting also the color saturation, and the Luma curve that only changes the density of the image while keeping the hue and saturation of the colors untouched.

Aside from the Luma curve, everything you’re going to see in the video is applicable to any other software that has the regular RGB Curve tool. For example, take a look at this colorful image:

I applied the same adjustments. On the left, we have got the edited version using the RGB curve, and on the right using the Luma curve. And, as you can see, in the Luma version, the skin tones are very pleasant and well-controlled. Whereas, on the RGB version the skin is oversaturated with strong reds and is way over the top.

The most common example that people often do to add contrast is a simple so-called S-curve.

They will add a couple of anchor points, one on the shadows and another on the highlights. Often lifting the highlights a little bit, while dipping the shadows ever so slightly, creating a gentle S-shape. It’s a nice approach, and it definitely works, but most of the time it’s too generic and that adjustment doesn’t differ too much from the result achievable just dragging the regular Contrast slider.

We can definitely go more in-depth than this and get a much more targeted adjustment.

Using the Curves Tool in Capture One 22 on a Low-Contrast Photo

Here we have got a low-contrast image and our goal is to increase the contrast using curves. But instead of using the basic S-shape, I want to show you how I like to tackle these kinds of images creating a more intricated curve targeted to the image content.

First things first: we want to analyze the levels of brightness in the image, and just moving the mouse over the image, the curve panel provides a vertical orange line that indicates the brightness level of the area we’re moving over.

What we want to do is to identify the areas we want to improve in terms of contrast. In this case, we want to increase the contrast between the rocks and the smooth levels in the scree slope.

If we draw a basic s-curve, just raising up this generic part of the highlights and decreasing the shadows, the result is nicer but it’s not enough for my liking, and the adjustment is not targeted to the image content. This is a great example of why a simple s-curve is not always the best solution. One size doesn’t fit all. We can definitely achieve a better result.

Now we’re going to set the black and white points dragging the two respective dots, and we can already see a nice contrast improvement, and also an increase in colors saturation.

Then we’re going to add a few anchor points based on the tonal value of a specific zone in the image.

We’re going to add an anchor point on the scree slope and another one on the rock. Our goal is to increase the distance in terms of brightness value between the two elements. Just increasing the brightness dragging up the upper dots dot, we can immediately see an increment of the contrast.

Bringing down the lower anchor point assigned to the rock, we can add even more contrast. But now we’re losing detail on the shadows area.

You might think to add an extra point right between the two anchor points and slightly increase the brightness, but doing so we’re flattening the curve, so that’s mean we’re losing details.

Whenever you have a horizontal flat line, that’s means you are flattening details. Some areas of the image start having the same tonal value, and the photo starts to look blotchy. It’s very important to avoid flat horizontal lines in your curves, at least, when you’re not creating it on purpose (for example to create the film/faded look).

Now, how can we solve the problem? Here is the trick. To mitigate the issue of the flat curve and losing details, we need to add an extra anchor point right after this one, just when the mouse changes its pointer icon. And now what we want to do is to straighten up the curve.

In this way, we can keep the localized contrast adjustment without crushing the shadows too much.

We still have enough room to improve the contrast even more in this rock wall adding another anchor point here on the lower part of the curve. If you like, we can add one last dot at the top of the curve to add even more punchiness to the clouds.

Here is the final result using a targeted curve based on the image content and not just applying a couple of random anchor points for the shadows and the highlights:

Keep in mind that these kinds of adjustments are only possible if the two areas you’re trying to adjust have a different brightness level.

Curves is an amazing tool you have to master. You can do so much stuff using it, and this video and article only scratched the surface. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

_About the author: Andrea Livieri is a Venice-based professional photographer, educator, musician, and spirited adventurer. He started exploring the photography medium by capturing images of fellow musicians, their families, and other friends and acquaintances in the music industry. As he continued honing his craft, he merged his love for photography and exploring the outdoors, enabling him to amass lots of photographic work of delightful scenery, rugged mountainscapes, and exhilarating terrain. He also leads photography courses, workshops, and tours to teach other photographers his methods and help them to bring out their own vision. For more from Livieri, you can follow him on his website and Instagram and subscribe to his YouTube Channel. _

#postprocessing #software #tutorials #andrealivieri #captureone #captureone22 #curves #editing #guide #howto #tips #tutorial

Landscape Photo Editing: Why You Need a Plan

When I started my journey in photography, one aspect that fascinated me the most -- and this extends even to today -- was photo editing. I remember my first edits. I was so delighted to see how my images changed drastically by just moving a few sliders in Lightroom or Photoshop.

Those changes were not necessarily in a good direction either.

It was so fun to play with tone sliders, colors, local adjustments, masks, and any fancy filter, but what I rapidly discovered was that I didn’t know exactly what I was doing, and more importantly, why I was doing it. After a few months, and then a couple of years, I looked back through some of my old images and I was very frustrated: My editing totally sucked!

I definitely missed something during the editing process and it was not the lack of a specific technical skill or the wrong software. What I was missing was the overall vision of what I was doing -- such as editing to create some kind of meaning in the image -- which was the result of the fact that I didn't have any pre-planning -- or previsualization, if you want -- before I started to tweak sliders and curves.

This issue I had is one that I see frequently among beginner photographers since they don’t have enough experience to understand where to start or why specific adjustments are important. It’s easy to lose ourselves between random adjustments here and there when you go into an image with no plan.

There are no rules when it comes to editing images. All we have to go on is our taste, sensibility, and personal style. Editing is not quite as simple as it sounds.

In this video, I want to share with you what I amusingly named the “ACDC System.”

ACDC: A - Analyze | C - Cropping | D - Distractions | C - Colors & Tones

This system is basically a photo-development process that I use on a daily basis with my photos. To discuss the process, I will use an example image I captured in the Lofoten Islands, and show you the process I used to bring the photo from its original RAW version to a finished and polished product.

For this shot, I used the Fujifilm GFX 50R with the Fujinon GF32-64mm f/4 zoom lens. It’s a standard wide-angle shot, with a full-frame equivalent focal length of 27mm:

I usually start analyzing the overall image and try to define which are its characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses by going over the key aspects of a photo below, which I use to form my editing plan.

What is the focal point? What should the aspect ratio of the image be? How is the exposure? How is the quality of light?

Should I apply global or local contrast? What are the colors I want to highlight?

Are there any distractions?

What’s my goal for the image, and the outcome I’m aiming for?

Once I define the overall editing plan, I’ll start applying all the adjustments I need in Lightroom (or Photoshop, if needed).

I do not mean this process to be a bunch of shortcuts, not at all -- there are no shortcuts, in general. I believe that the idea of shortcuts will never get you where you really want to go. My goal is to give you, like in my previous video about the composition framework, some guidelines and suggestions to see photo editing from a slightly different perspective, and therefore help you to improve your confidence and vision on how to map a more robust and repeatable mind approach to define the direction of your post-processing workflow. You can do this by discussing the how-tos as much as the whys.

My finished edit.

As I said, there are no shortcuts and I can’t guarantee your photos will always be amazing. Actually, post-processing is not everything and there are a lot of other aspects to consider along the creative process. But I’m pretty sure you’ll find some of these concepts useful to shape your own vision and your approach to photo editing.

_About the author: Andrea Livieri is a Venice-based professional photographer, educator, musician, and spirited adventurer. He started exploring the photography medium by capturing images of fellow musicians, their families, and other friends and acquaintances in the music industry. As he continued honing his craft, he merged his love for photography and exploring the outdoors, enabling him to amass lots of photographic work of delightful scenery, rugged mountainscapes, and exhilarating terrain. He also lead photography courses, workshops, and tours to teach other photographers his methods and help them to bring out their own vision.

For more from Livieri, you can follow him on Instagram and subscribe to his YouTube Channel. _

#educational #tips #tutorials #andrealivieri #editing #landscapeediting #landscapephotography #landscapephotographytips #method #photoediting #photoeditingtips #photographytechniques #previsualization #rules #techniques #workflow

A Simple Four-Step Framework for Better Landscape Photo Compositions

In photography, many aspects can make an image successful, and in my opinion, what defines the bones of a great photo is a good composition. Instead of thinking composition like a series of canonical rules, I much prefer to use principles like connection, tone, colors, shape, relationship, light gestures, and so on.

I would say that the so-called "rules" are often made to be internalized, but selectively broken. In that sense, I think it would be better to call them "guidelines" or "suggestions" rather than hard and fast rules.

Especially for young photographers, composition is a tricky visual principle to implement organically into a workflow, and it's quite difficult sometimes to find valuable information on how to do this that differs from the canonical rules such as the well-known rule of thirds or other more complex techniques.

In the video above, I discuss a comprehensive and straightforward approach to develop a sort of composition framework based on a four-step sequence. In it, everything centers around the concept of "simplicity."

I'm not referring to minimalism or minimalistic photography, but rather simplification, where complexity is the input and simplicity is the output.

As the famous businessman, Maurice Saatchi said: "Simplicity is the outcome of technical subtlety. It is the goal, not the starting point."

You can easily optimize the strength of your compositions just by taking care of a few aspects of your framing process. The Simplicity-framework is based on this four-step framework:

How many elements are in the frame? Try to keep them less than or equal to four or five.

Pay attention to the internal complexity of each of those elements, so the relationship between them is complex and interesting.

Is there a level of separation between the main subject and the surrounding area? Make sure there is also the separation between the elements in general.

Is the primary visual element of the photo the focus of the image?

I put in the video ten different successful images I shot and I compared them with other related and less successful images, going through the strengths and the weaknesses of each one. For example:

Looking at the above photo, we can see five elements, a high level of internal complexity, good separation, and a clear focal point.

In contrast, is a different composition of the same scene that is much weaker because it breaks with those four elements:

I am conscious that many other factors help to create a compelling image, but this visual framework can be a wonderful tool in your arsenal to take your compositions a step further. It’s simple to apply and crazy powerful. Below are a few more breakdowns of images as examples:

I won't go so far as to say this is some magic formula, because it is not. It is just a visual structure that works for me and it can be very useful in evaluating the scenarios we want to photograph in order to optimize the arrangements of elements and remove distractions.

The best way to get better is to practice. So, next time you go out to shoot, try to use this framework and visual process. I hope you find these concepts helpful and useful.

_About the author: Andrea Livieri is a Venice-based professional photographer, educator, musician, and spirited adventurer. He started exploring the photography medium by capturing images of fellow musicians, their families, and other friends and acquaintances in the music industry. As he continued honing his craft, he merged his love for photography and exploring the outdoors, enabling him to amass lots of photographic work of delightful scenery, rugged mountainscapes, and exhilarating terrain. He also lead photography courses, workshops, and tours to teach other photographers his methods and help them to bring out their own vision.

For more from Livieri, you can follow him on Instagram and subscribe to his YouTube Channel. _

#inspiration #tips #andrealivieri #landscapephotography #landscapephotographytips #method #photographytechniques #rules #techniques #workflow