LANDSCAPE EDITING MASTERCLASS

Discover the shooting and editing secrets behind the most popular multi-image landscape photography techniques

- JAMES ABBOTT

Just like soccer, photography is a game of two halves. The first half is the shoot – the process of capturing our images, during which we aim to get everything as close to perfect as possible in-camera, from composition to the focus point and exposure settings. The second half is the editing process, during which we correct flaws, apply enhancements and fine-tune the compositon in order to make our images look their very best.

There are some landscape photography techniques where the shooting and editing processes go hand in hand – the two are inextricably linked – and these techniques are heavily dependent on editing because they involve shooting multiple frames, whether that’s to capture a wider scene that would be possible with a single frame, or to capture the full tonal range of a high-contrast scene or get every element of a landscape in focus.

Focus stacking, HDR photography, panoramas and HDR panoramas are four such landscape techniques, and in this feature we’re going to explain how to shoot for and create each type of image, with detailed tutorials showing you how to process your in order to achieve the most natural-looking results. Once you’ve followed these, you’ll be able to use these techniques individually, or combine them, to take both your shooting and editing skills to the next level, and produce landscape images packed with interest and detail for maximum impact.

MASTER FOCUS STACKING

Capture sharpness from the front to the back of a scene for an expanded depth of field with maximum detail