I have been busy working on a new set of Photoshop guides that I am planning to launch in the next few months. The guides explain some of the real secrets of improving images so that they convey what the photographer felt when shooting the image, not necessarily what the camera can record.

In this particular example I had taken this image on my Sony R1 in Poland last September. The day had been filled with glorious sunshine and the evening had turned into a magical sunset. The camera captured it perfectly apart from it couldn’t cope with the contrast range between the sky and the trees and the sunset was just washed out. This exposure problem occurred despite me using a 0.6 ND Graduated filter. And if you’re wondering why I didn’t just go for a stronger filter, just take note of those tree tops cutting the horizon. Had I used a stronger grad I suspect I would have turned them black and lost detail in the branches that I was able to save. In the final image here, I have used a combination of layers and masks. I have only used one RAW file and one exposure from the RAW file yet I was able to tame the image contrast.

What I find interesting is that when I was writing the guide on masking I started to add in lots of new tricks and techniques that I hadn’t realised I knew. I decided to create this image to practice what I was preaching and have been rather pleasantly surprised by what is possible. I guess it’s true, you don’t really understand something until you come to teach it.