Landscape photography from the field

Local Adjustments

Why I Stopped Reaching for Sliders First (And What I Do Instead)
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Why I Stopped Reaching for Sliders First (And What I Do Instead)

There’s a habit most of us pick up early and never fully question. You open a raw file, your eye goes straight to the Basics panel, and you start dragging sliders. Highlights down. Shadows up. Maybe nudge the exposure. It feels productive. It looks better than the raw file. And then you wonder why your images still feel a little flat, a little unresolved, like something is off but you can’t name it.

From Flat to Dimensional: 6 Editing Skills That Changed How I Process Every Landscape Photo
Video Tutorials

From Flat to Dimensional: 6 Editing Skills That Changed How I Process Every Landscape Photo

There’s a version of me from about fifteen years ago who spent an hour on global sliders and called it done. Exposure up, contrast in, clarity pushed until the rocks looked like they were carved from steel. The images looked processed, not finished, and I couldn’t figure out why. It took a long time, and a lot of ruined files, before I understood that global adjustments set the stage. Local adjustments are where the actual editing happens.