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how to edit like Melli & Shayne

How this
image was
edited

Melli & Shayne

Adobe Lightroom CC

M&S The Roots Presets (Protea)

Stick Figure - Heartland

Skills

Basic Panel, Effects, Radial Adjustment, Brush Adjustment, Gradient Brush

Editing this image involved a good few local adjustments as I really wanted to bring the most of out it. The goal here was definitely on the warm skin tones while also keeping the dress close to white without looking out of place. I added the Protea (Golden) preset, adjusted the HSL to bring a bit more reds back, and tweaked the usual exposure sliders & white balance. I then enhanced the sunset light with radial filters and manually created a vignette to compliment the play between highlights and shadows.

Breakdown

Each phase of the edit

Use the arrows to progress through the edit

Swipe to progress through the edit

SOOC

This is the image straight out of the camera. Completely unedited, and totally RAW.

Applied Protea FLAT

I wanted to keep as much details both in the highlights and shadows, so I chose to use the "Flat" version of our protea presets which do just that.

Global Exposure adjusting

I then adjusted the exposure, highlights, shadows, contrast, white balance and so on to get a general balance of the image. Not too contrasty, but punchy enough.

Enahncing the Sun

I then added a radial adjustment which reduced the Dehaze slider as well as a few tweaks to the white balance and exposure to help create a believable haze from the sun. It was positioned slightly off the image to the right where the sun naturally was.

Adding in the shade

Since I added the light in the previous step, I felt that I could add a bit more dynamism to the whole image by darkening the surrounding areas. I did this by using a new radial adjustment, invert it, and dropped the shadows & Exposures.

Globally Darken

Now that I have a "new" light to work with, I realized the image was a tad on the brighter side for the mood I was going for. I simply dropped the exposure a bit to make it feel a bit more moody.

Brighten the sun

In doing so, I also darkened the sun. I simply selected the radial point for the sun and increased its exposure slightly more.

Sky Darken

I then used a gradient adjustment to darken and enhance the sky. I simply dragged it down, lowered the exposure, increased the white balance and tweaked a few smaller exposure settings. Finally, I made sure to use the range mask to prevent the adjustment from applying on the car & the couple.

Darken the ground

I then very quickly added another gradient adjustment to the floor so that I could further increase the emphasis on the couple being the brighter part of the image.

Skin Tones

I noticed the skin was looking a bit dull, so I simply increased the vibrance a small amount to bring back a bit more life.

Dodge & Burn

I then used the brush tool and started to brush in areas with highlights (increased exposure) and areas with shadow (decreased exposure) to give the couple a bit more 'pop' without affecting the rest of the image.