Julianne Kost’s Antartica Blog Post

Julianne Kost did a nice couple of blog posts on her photo expedition to Antartica. One post was her narrative and images, the other was devoted to how she does her Lightroom and Photoshop post-production. That one also shows the photos at the different steps of post work. They’re both worth a look.

On her approach to photography, Julieanne says, “It’s important to know what you can do in post when shooting. While we aspire to capture all of the key elements to make a successful image in camera (light, gesture, composition etc.), post processing is another tool that can be used to craft and refine your vision, and if you can pre-visualize what an image can become, you have an advantage.”

Some of the images:

Here’s what she says about her Lightroom work on the image above. The initial image is presented first and it is fairly murky, not something you’d show.

In the Lens correction panel, I began my editing by enabling both the Remove Chromatic Aberration and Enable Profile Correction options to remove any distortion and vignetting caused by the lens.
Then, I cropped and straightened the image to better balance the composition (and remove the distracting ice on the left side of the frame.)
Because of the cloud cover, the original capture was flat and lacking in contrast. I used the Whites and Blacks sliders in the Basic Panel to extend the dynamic range of the photograph across the entire histogram. I also increased the Contrast slider and decreased the Highlights slider to retain detail in the brighter area of the ice.
I adjusted the white balance of the image to neutralize the ice in the foreground by moving the Temperature slider towards blue and the Tint slider slightly towards magenta.
As a result, the sky lost its yellow color so I painted in the sky area with yellow using the Adjustment Brush to add depth and create color contrast between the foreground and background.
I added local contrast and clarity by painting with the Adjustment Brush, helping to make the icicles pop and boost edge definition.
Finally, I used the Spot Removal tool to remove the darker shadow on the left as well as some distracting imperfections and drips in the ice.