Luminar Corner - Giving Life to a Crooked, Gray Photo

By Chamira Young

Despite the fact that winters in Michigan are considered gray and devoid of color, I firmly believe there are still interesting photos to be made. In today's featured photo for our Luminar Corner, it's a winter photo of the St. John's Marsh preserve area, located about 45 minutes northeast of Detroit. I used to live all of 2.5 minutes away from it, and it was one of my favorite places to hike through and explore.

It was a walk down memory lane finding this image on my hard drive. Let's have some fun with it and see what we can do. Here's the original image:

The Process
 
I recall the day being so cold I was in a rush to take the image: hence it's crookedness. First I straightened out the image by using the Free Transform Tool.

From there, I played it by eye. I applied the "Impressive" Preset from the Travel Category, which gave it some immediate pop. I left the Exposure the same, but decided to turn down the Highlights just a little. Then, I turned up the Shadows, which brought out the contrast in the golden marsh grass. I raised the Clarity, and raised the Vibrance ever so slightly. 

Finally, from the blue "Add Filters" button in the upper right corner, I selected the HSL filter, which allows you to control the Hue, Saturation, and Luminance (Brightness) of the individual colors in your image. I turned up the Aqua and Blue settings to bring out the blue hues of the sky a bit.

Below is the final image. It definitely has fresh life breathed into it. Have you tried Luminar yet?

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Click to visit Skylum and check out Luminar 3 along with all their other amazing software!

Put in the special discount code of "SKIPCOHEN" and receive an additional $10 off.  That means you can pre-order Luminar 3 for $49 USD and upgrade from the previous version for $39 USD.   
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Please Note: For every purchase made between now and December 31, 2018, through the SCU link on the right, SCU will be donating $5 to Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.

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