what's up everybody Joris Hermans here
and today I will show you how I edit my
photos National Geographic style. You'll
be able to edit yours the same way in
less than five minutes.
Okay guys, first of all, what do I mean by
National Geographic style? When I think
about National Geographic, I think about
iconic photos we all know taken by
famous photographers like Steve McCurry.
The only problem is that most of those
photos were shot on film. Now, if you want
that film look specifically just shoot
on film because you can try to simulate
it with Photoshop and presets but it
will never look the same. So, what I want
to show you is how I edit my photos to
create that feeling of exploring the
world and experiencing cultures. That's
what I mean when I say National
Geographic style. It's not a film look
but it's adding extra warmth and
contrast–atmosphere–to your digital
photos and at the end you can save
everything we did in a preset and edit
your photos the same way in less than
five minutes. Now, I'm going to use the
Camera Raw plugin from Photoshop but you
can do exactly the same in Lightroom.
So, it doesn't matter what you use. Okay,
let's get going. Okay, so I have opened
one of my favorite photos from India in
Camera Raw and I'll use this one as an
example. We'll start here in the
calibration window now this is normally
where you set the calibration for your
camera but I found that the settings I
use worked good for my Pentax camera as
well as my Canon cameras. So, try it out
and see what it does if it doesn't look
good then skip this step. And I set the
Reds to 15. Saturation minus 5. Green
Primary plus 25. Saturation minus 20. The
next thing that we need to do is here
the HSL adjustments. Here we can change
all the colors the hue, saturation and
luminance
now just follow my lead and put the
settings in. You can experiment here but
don't do it too long at a time because
after half an hour, you can't see the
difference anymore. So, here we go
the Reds, we'll go for plus 15. We're
talking about a hue tab now. Make sure
you're in the right tab. The Orange is
minus 6.
We go on. No, I'm sorry
+6. The Yellows minus five. The Greens
plus fifteen. The aquas zero. The Blues
we'll go for plus five and the two other
sliders we're leaving zero. Then on to
the saturation. The Reds were going for
minus 30 and the Orange is plus five. The
Yellows zero. The Greens minus 50. Don't
want too much green in there. The Aquas was
minus 25. The Blues plus 10. The Purples
minus 30 and the Magentas minus 30. Then,
the last tab. The Luminance. The Reds
minus 20. Oranges minus 5.
Yellows minus 15. The Greens minus 10. The
Aqua zero. Blues minus 20. And the magentas minus. Okay.
That's it for the HSL adjustments
and then we come at the part where the
magic happens the tone curves.
Now, there's one, there's two different
curves. A parametric one and the point
curve. For the parametric one,
I'll just set a basic slight S curve. Now,
you can just use the same settings here.
For lights we set it to 10 and the
shadows go to minus 20 and then you see
those little triangles here. We're going
to adjust these two. The first one we'll
slide to 18. The second one to 45. There,
and the last one to 75. Now, the
difference between those two curves is
the parametric curve is a simple curve
where you can adjust the basic
highlights, shadows and mid-tones of your
photo. Now, the point curve is
gets interesting because there you can
change the curve per channel. You can use
the red, blue or green channel and change
it accordingly. That's what we're gonna
do here. We'll just leave the RGB channel
alone and we'll ju... we'll go for the red
channel. So, what I want to do first is
set the same curve for all three
channels. You can use the input and
output to get exactly the same curves. So,
we'll start with the first point. Just
click on the curve and it will add an
anchor point. The first one will set at
31 and the output at 8 then create
another one and we'll set it at 48 and
19. And then, here in the middle we'll set
another one that goes to 114, 123 and
then the last one here goes to 185 and
199. Okay, and we'll do exactly the same
for green. First one, thirty one. Second
one, wait, sorry, 31, eight. The second point
we go for 48, 19. The third point 114 and
123 and the last one 185.
185 to 199. Then the blue exactly the
same. First, 131 eight. Second, 148, 19. The
middle one 114, 123 and the last one it's
above here 185 to
199. Now, what I want to do is leave the
blue and the green the same curve and
I'm gonna change the red one slightly.
The top point here, I'm gonna pull it
down a little bit because I don't want
too much red in the highlights. So, pull
it down a little bit. You can also use
the input/output just put it to one
seventy nine and one nine one. Okay, so
that's the point curve. It's basically
the most important thing of my editing
here because you can change the whole
look of your photo by dragging the curve
slightly up or down. The whole feel of
the photo changes and now we come to the
last part and that's the basics of the
photo. Now, we can see here his face
it's way too dark. So, I want to up the
exposure a little bit to 35 maybe. Then
the shadows because his face is too
bright and maybe also the highlights.
Take those down maybe. White a lot. The
contrast a little bit less and that's it.
That's how I like to edit my photos to
get this 'National Geographic style' is
what I call it. Now, once you've done all
these steps just save it in a preset you
can do that here.
And go to save settings. There. Just save
it give it a name and then you can use
this preset for different photos. I'll
show you how. So, we have this photo and
we can just apply the preset that we
made here. I called it NatGeo. You click on
it. You'll see it's way too dark now. The
only thing we have to do now is work
with the basics and we can do everything
from here now. You don't need to mess
again with the point curves or the
parametric curves or all those luminance,
saturation and hue settings. Just leave
those alone just work with the basic
settings.
for this photo you'll see it's dark so,
I'll go brighter with the exposure. I
want it a little bit warmer so we can
change the temperature and maybe also a
little bit... and maybe also bring back the
shadows a little bit more.
And you can use this preset for
landscapes, portraits, street photos. It
really doesn't matter. I'll show you
another example with the photo I took in
Kuala Lumpur. Heavily underexposed by the
way because I wanted the detail in the
street sign. So, apply the preset go back
to the basics. Let's go for a little bit
more exposure and also contrast for this
one. A little bit warmer and maybe for
this one we can up the saturation also a
little bit more. There you go. Okay, guys
and that's it. Once you have the preset
it's super easy just apply the preset
and work with the basic settings. That's
all you need to do. Let me know if it
works for your photos and see you next
time!
