Snapping the shutter is not the end for me, it’s just the beginning. The post processing work I do in Lightroom and Photoshop is just as important as the original. This is a picture I took a few years ago. I always liked the composition but the original image that came out of the camera failed to capture the mood I wanted. Much f it was too dark and many of the details were indistinct or buried in shadows. Truth be told, the image was a failure.

I know more now than I did when I took that picture. However, unless I go back and re-shoot the scene, I have to live with the decisions I made that night. All is not lost! I can take that imperfect original image and coax it into something much more like I imagined as you see above. I pulled up the exposure, toned down the brightest highlights and seriously boosted the blacks and local contrast (details). Then I pushed the vibrancy of the colors while cutting the saturation. The result draws the eye up the cobbled path, into the picture and eventually to the moody sky. The original (below) is dull and fails to draw the viewer in.