Adobe’s new Adaptive Color Profile is an amazing AI-based tool that analyses an image and adjusts tones and colors to make them “look just right.” The experts at Adobe put it like this: “The effect is as if the AI has changed exposure, shadows, highlights, Color Mixer, Curves, and other key controls for you.”

Today’s Australian instructor Charles N. provides a step by-step tutorial on how to use the Adaptive Color Profile in Lightroom Classic and says, “it’s a great starting point in your image-editing workflow.” This technique simplifies subsequent adjustments for balancing overall brightness, lightening shadows that are too dark, and refining overly bright highlights.

Charles has more than a decade of experience teaching landscape and wildlife photography, as well as offering expert advice for mastering Lightroom and other post-processing software. In this episode he explains why the new Adaptive Profile goes far beyond one-size-fits-all, and how he employs it with different types of images.

The first example is a pretty landscape image of an interesting old hut in the foreground of a scene with hills looming in the distance. Charles already edited the shot using Lightroom’s familiar Neutral Color Profile to demonstrate what happens when you sit back and watch the Adaptive Color Profile work its magic instead.

It’s important to keep in mind that this technique is only intended for use with Raw files, so don’t try it with Jpegs or TIFFs. This new tool is easy find because it appears at the top of the Profile dropdown menu. There’s a line beneath this option to indicate that it’s different than all the other profiles beneath.

Just click on your photo after choosing Adaptive Color and BOOM, the image is automatically examined and transformed in seconds. Charles then compares the version he spent 10 minutes editing to the AI-based version and they look remarkably similar. As he exclaims, “This is the beauty of the Adaptive Color profile. Sometime it gets it spot on, while other times a bit more work is necessary because nothing is perfect with AI.”

Charles continues the lesson by apply Adaptive Color to a few other landscape and wildlife photos, and the benefits are equally impressive, especially when you consider that this approach only requires a single click. So take a look and see if you agree. Then head over to Charles’ instructional YouTube channel where there’s much more to learn.

And don’t miss the earlier tutorial we featured with another post-processing expert who demonstrates when, why and how to use a straightforward time-blending technique to create landscape photographs with perfectly balanced tones.

One post-processing technique that has surged in popularity among landscape photographers is the so called “Orton Effect.” Sometimes it’s overdone, but when applied correctly you’ll love the creative, dreamy look that you achieve.

What’s different about this tutorial from Lachlan Garutti (AKA Locki Gee) is that he demonstrates how to quickly create an impressive Orton Effect in Lightroom, rather than using the more common Photoshop approach. He explains everything you need to know in less than six minutes, after which you’ll want to update your everyday image-editing workflow accordingly.

Australia-born Garutti is so committed to his craft that he currently resides in a van with his cameras while traveling throughout Europe. He specializes in nature, adventure and travel photography and is very fond of imbuing images with an eye-catching glow. It’s a straightforward five-step process than anyone can master in minutes, and Garutti explains how to save the effect as a preset for future use.

Garutti’s goal is to add an Orton Glow to the highlight areas in today’s demonstration photo. It’s a beautiful alpine scene in the Dolomite mountains that’s nicely composed but the light isn’t quite right. So watch the magical transformation that occurs when he applies a soft, warm, comforting glow.

The first step is somewhat unusual and involves covering the entire image with a single mask. There are a variety of ways to make this selection and Garutti demonstrates why the Brush tool approach is preferable to others for this particular task. He also explains the most appropriate settings which include a Brush size of 100%, lowering the Feather to zero, and cranking up Flow and Density to 100%.

Now it’s time to add a signature glow that makes the Orton Effect so popular. You’ll learn how to set overall exposure, highlights, and contrast. Garutti explains that, “we don’t want to blow out the entirety of the image, we just want them to glow with no clipping in the whites.” By doing this you can achieve a subtle brightness that doesn’t overwhelm the shot.

At this point the image looks pretty great, but there are three more important steps that refine the effect for a spectacular result, so be sure to hang in there until the end. Then pay a visit to Garutti’s instructional YouTube channel where you’ll find more shooting and image-editing lessons.

We also recommend watching a tutorial we featured recently with another Adobe expert who clarifies the difference between Lightroom’s “two most important color-grading tools” and demonstrates when and how one works better than the other.

Fuji just announced a one-of-a-kind camera: the Fuji GFX100RF, a fixed lens, medium format camera with a 35mm f/4 lens (28mm full-frame equivalent). This 102-megapixel camera takes up very little space for a medium format body and weighs just 735 grams (1.62 pounds). That’s less than a Nikon Z6 III without the lens!

The eye-opening tutorial below begins with a question from instructor Simon d’Entremont: “Do you find that some of your photos aren’t as good as you hoped, but you’re unsure exactly what’s wrong?” Maybe they’re blurry, lacking in detail, unsharp, or simply uninteresting. We’ve all faced this dilemma at one time or another, regardless of our skills.

According to Simon, a Canadian pro and Canon Ambassador, the culprit may be your failure to understand the top five beginner mistakes that photographers make, and he admits to being guilty of these mistakes himself. In fact, we all get things wrong on occasion, but the trick is learning the errors of your ways and not making the same mistake more than once.

Overexposed highlights are at the top of Simon’s list and show up in your photos as pure white areas that are completely devoid of detail; otherwise referred as “blown out.” Simon explains that this occurs “because your camera photosites (the light-collecting elements on a sensor) are exposed with so much light that they’re over full beyond the maximum amount of photons they can capture.”

Unfortunately, there’s no way to recover this lost detail, and if you try dropping exposure during post processing you simply get a darker white—a “solution” that’s not really a solution at all. The moral of the story is this: it’s essential to use correct camera settings to “expose whites that appear white but stop short of being blown out.” It’s easy to do this by following Simon’s advice.

Another major issue is inaccurate focus acquisition. Or as Simon says, “part of the image may be in focus, but it’s not the main subject of the photo.” As you’ll see, this may or may not be your fault because many older cameras don’t have sophisticated subject-tracking capabilities, eye-detection, or other modern features that help lock onto a subject with speed and precision. But once again, there are several things you can do with whatever camera you own.

The lesson continues with three more image-killing mistakes and effective solutions. One involves careless camera movement, another is failing to understand the limitations of certain lighting scenarios, and the third occurs due to a lack of effort in choosing the best angle from which to shoot.

There’s a lot more to learn about shooting and processing wildlife, nature, and landscape photographs on Simon’s instructional YouTube channel.

And be sure to watch the earlier tutorial we featured with an accomplished Australian pro who demonstrates several straightforward secrets for capturing stunning high-key bird photographs with a unique, minimalist look.