how to edit like Melli & Shayne

How this
image was
edited

Melli & Shayne

Adobe Lightroom Classic

M&S The Roots Presets (Protea / Golden)

Fake Doctors, Real Friends (podcast)

Skills

Basic Panel, HSL Sliders, Detail, Effects, Radial Adjustment, Brush Adjustment, Gradient Brush, Crop

One of the most important things we do when we are editing is paying attention to the skin tones. Everyone wants to look great in their photos and having skin tones that look good and don’t show off any blemishes is key. In this particular image, a lot of local adjustments were made to really bring out the most drama and impact from the very subtle sunset we had left.

It was also an edit that we went back and forth on quite a bit; trying this thing here and that thing there. Sometimes an edit isn’t linear but very much all over the place. It’s a great way to find out just the look you are going for by exploring those that you certainly don’t want. It helps to see things based on what adjustments will happen and ultimately trains your eye to predicting what sliders will do what.

Breakdown

Each phase of the edit

Use the arrows to progress through the edit

Swipe to progress through the edit

Straight out of Camera

Check out the full story on how this image was photographed (linked above).

Crop

We cropped the image so that our couple was perfectly in the center, but also filled up the entire lower thirds of the image as it split the frame into 3 parts - creating symmetry.

Added Protea (Golden) Preset

We applied the preset and paid attention to what colors were changed when it was applied. It was just to keep in mind how far from "reality" it went

Exposure adjustments

We did the usual tweaks of exposure, white balance, highlights & shadows, and clarity. The goal here was on the skin tones. we didn't really mind about anything else as we knew we could come back and darken it with local adjustments. Here, it was all about the skin & the couple.

HSL Adjustments

We then needed to go in and adjust the skin tones a bit more by venturing into the HSL panel.

We shifted the Hues of the oranges, reds and yellows more to the "yellow" tone, reduced some saturations of these warmer colors, and increased the luminance of them to help find a tonal range that we liked. It was a lot of back and forth.

Grain, Vignette, Sharpen & Skin Soften

We try to edit with our grain preset already applied as it helps us see the final texture of the image. We added our presets for the grain, vignette (level 1, so it was gentle), sharpening and skin soften (it's global but can be adjusted later).

Darken the sky

Since we had this amazing storm, we wanted to darken the sky slightly so it's even more dramatic. We did this by adding a Gradient Filter Adjustment with exposure, shadows, and highlights all reduced and the clarity increased. We also adjusted the saturation and white balance to get it to blend a bit more naturally.

Sunset Adjustments

We next focused on the sunset colors. We created a radial filter, stretched it across the screen with max feathering and inverted it so the adjustments applied on the inside.

We increased our white balance significantly (more warmth) and then played with the exposure, highlights, contrasts and saturations to find a feel that we liked. The goal was to keep it warm but also make it seem like it was spreading out more and the light was reaching more of our couple.

One extra tip was to play with the Range Slider which helped to choose where these adjustments were being applied.

Remove Vignette, Exposure Tweaks

We realized here that the vignette was better created manually, so we removed it and adjusted the exposures to find a new balance.

Darken Grass & Sky

We adjusted the sky gradient filter to compensate for the removal of the vignette and created a new one for the grass with much stronger adjustments.

Sunset from the side

Since the sun had set just off to the side of the frame, we wanted to create even more of a dramatic feeling by "pumping it up".

We created a radial filter, max feathering, and fairly large and adjusted the white balance warmer, exposure brighter, and dropped the dehaze to add a more natural-looking feel to the light. We then shifted it out of the screen so we only had just the left half of the radial filter in the shot.

Darkened again

We then darkened the overall image again via the exposures and added a stronger level of grain since we felt the previous one wasn't visible enough.

Sunset further enhance

We added another quick but small radial adjustment where the sunset was, except this time it was only on the brightness as we wanted a bit more contrast coming from the sunset.

Sky further enhanced

We then added in a few more gradient filters to adjust the sky, especially around the edges which helps create a vignette. However, by doing it this way, we only affected the sky which was important since the grass had become quite dark already.

Last Few exposure tweaks

We adjusted the exposure settings a last time just to find that right balance. We darkened the overall image and paid close attention to the contrasts globally and on our couple