My Editing Process

I always try to get my images exactly how I want them in camera, but sometimes, depending on the conditions, it's not possible. The image above was taken in a field near Fargo, and the colors of the sunset were gorgeous! I went out and took a panorama, while also getting three separate exposures for each of the six images I used to make the panorama. I edit my photos using Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop, and this image already looked pretty awesome, so I didn't have to edit it that much. The first thing I did was combine each of the exposures to create six different HDR images. I then created the panorama through Lightroom's Panorama feature. I increased the shadows to +100 and then lowered the highlights to -100. This created an image where I could see both the foreground and the sunset. The next thing I did was boost the vibrance and saturation to create some wonderful colors in the sky. I also warmed up the colors a bit by changing the white balance to more orange and pink. I adjusted the white and black point, and then boosted the clarity. My image looked pretty good...but the sky was still too bright. I used a gradient filter to darken the sky, and then I finished the image with some noise reduction and a vignette!