Reality Check: Before and After Photoshop - Sunsets and Sunrises

_{Crisp winter morning on the lake.}

Quite often I get asked how much my pictures are Photoshopped and how do I do it, and I've been promising a long time to show you exactly what I do. This first set of before and afters is only about sunsets and sunrises, but I'm thinking of showing some other nature/landscape pictures too and you probably want to see the self portrait works too, to see what I look like under all that Photoshopping.

I though it would be best to show you the exact changes on some of the pictures in Camera Raw, where I can easily show you the side by side comparison. This is where I do basically all the changes and when I open the picture in Photoshop, I usually just straighten the image if needed and resize it. Sometimes there is a smudge on the lens or some little thing I take out with the healing tool.

My philosophy with taking photographs and post processing them is that I want the picture to come out as good as possible straight from the camera, and then just do some little tweaks and adjustments in Camera Raw. I don't think beautiful nature in a gorgeous light needs any changes, just some enhancements that the camera couldn't catch but you could see if you were present.

Usually the main focus is bringing in detail from the lightest and darkest parts of the photo, and bumping up saturation and vibrance.

Under every picture is a link to the original post where you can see a bigger version of the picture and all the other pictures from the set.

And by the way, all these were shot with the Nikon D7200, during this early year of 2018.

Disclaimer: I'm not a pro and I'll never tell you what you should do and how to do it, just showing what I personally like to do for my pictures.

_{Sometimes you are in the right place at the right time.}

_{A rare city view from me when we saw the light for the first time in over a month.}

_{Clouds gave way to a little light and colours after the sun set.}

_{I'm only a couple days old, go see my friends.}

_{Perhaps my favourite sunset of the year, you need to see this bigger.}

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Previously on my Reality Check -series:

The Most Naked I Have Ever Been

Behind the Self Portraits

Everyday Eve

I’m a Gremlin

Outfit of the Day, Every Day