Reducing Sky Exposure

[Walt D]

Hello all.   I've been comin up to speed on Affinity Photo for a few weeks and I'm super impressed.  Especially how I can process my Fuji Raws (landscapes) in Lightroom and then open in Affinity so seamlessly.  BUT, one thing has be stumped.  In Lightroom, I can use a grad filter to drop exposure and highlights on my sky -  see attached images 1 & 2.  I took the base image and applied -1.6 exposure and -25 highlights.  It looks great except for the fact that I darkened the mountain tops (that's why I'm learning Affinity)

When I do the same in Affinity, the sky just gets dark and gray.  Best I can do is with a Curves / Brightness adjustment - see attached image 3. So my question is, what Layer Adjustments in Affinity Photo are equivalent to Lightroom's Exposure & Highlight reduction?  There's got to be a way.  Its obvious that the "Exposure Slider" in Lightroom is not really exposure but a combination of several things.

Thanks,

Walt

[v_kyr]

52 minutes ago, Walt D said:

...It looks great except for the fact that I darkened the mountain tops

Well, in Lightroom a linear gradient and brush can be applied also just on selected portions, thus the whole can usually also be done completely in LR here. So there wouldn't be a need for APhoto just for that!

However, in APhoto you can use the Develop Persona or Photo Persona (use which one you prefer) for such tasks.

1. Using the Develop Persona (thus switching from Photo Persona to Develop Persona for that task...)
    
2. Using the Photo Persona (just a quick turn around here so you get the base idea, you should make better/finer sky selections then...)
    

[Walt D]

Good points, but since I have LR 6, the only way I can "unmask" the tops of the mountains from my gradient is to use an erase brush.  I wish I had the newer LR tools with Luminosity masking.

So far, I've tried Curves, Brightness and Contrast, Levels, Exposure, Highlights.  None of these work as well as LR to get a natural colorful sky.  I guess I'll keep trying different combinations of the adjustments.

Thanks,

Walt

[v_kyr]

46 minutes ago, Walt D said:

Good points, but since I have LR 6, the only way I can "unmask" the tops of the mountains from my gradient is to use an erase brush.

Well you can mask (select) the sky portions for adjustments easily in LR for that above shown shot. - See here how to do that on even more complex sky with trees backgrounds (or here).

[Walt D]

Got it, thanks.

[firstdefence]

This is a pretty interesting video on luminosity masks in Affinity: https://lenscraft.co.uk/photo-editing-tutorials/creating-affinity-photo-luminosity-masks/

[Walt D]

The luminosity masks are very powerful no doubt.  I've been using Dave's "Smart 'n' Simple" Luminosity Mask Macros which really allow me to put adjustments on select parts of the image.  I'm also a huge fan of the Blend Range Adjustments for tweaking stuff.  I guess that's why I'm a little frustrated - I can manipulate all kinds of adjustments (curves, exposure, levels & etc) on specific parts of the image, yet I can't make it look natural like the basic gradient tool in Lightroom.  I guess the key to Blending the sky to the foreground is to not use hard edge masks at all.

This is the best I'm able to get at the moment.  I know there are lots of halo's and hard edges, but I was just practicing to see if I could manipulate the foreground, mid ground, far ground and sky.

I'm just a novice at this, but I'm pretty pleased with this fantastic software!

[v_kyr]

BTW, there once upon a time (when buying APh v1.6 I think) was also a bonus content bundle called "Uplift Epic Skies", which was meant for dealing with sky replacement and adjustments etc.

• Uplift Epic Skies (Affinity Photo 1.6 Bonus Content) - video

[firstdefence]

@Walt D Would you mind uploading the raw file for us to have a play with, see if we can’t work out a workflow of sorts

[Walt D]

I converted the raw to DNG in LR, and no longer have the RAF - see attached DNG.  The 16bit sRGB TIFF is too large to upload.

hburg_pic.dng

[v_kyr]

See also this Affinity Photo video, which shows some selection essentials, it's even useful if you are not replacing the sky but instead going to modify/alter it via adjustments ...

• Sky Replacement (Affinity Photo)

See generally also some of the Affinity Photo tutorials here for using certain adjustments (and some of the older tutorials here)!

[Walt D]

OK guys - I finally figured out the source of my confusion.  In LR, when I process a raw file, the sky has a huge dynamic range.  LR, as a raw editor enables me to manipulate this range.  I can take a blown out sky and pull it (exposure/highlight/contrast) way down to reveal hidden details.  The data is there in the raw file.

I can do the same thing in Affinity Developer.  I can adjust Exposure, highlights & contrast to get the same result. Unfortunately, as soon as I click "develop" and go from the Develop to the Photo Persona, much of this range is not available.  I can manipulate it, but it has much less range.  I didn't understand the difference between a Raw editor and a Pixel Editor.

So I'm trying to understand what that means.  Should I develop the raw file as close to finish result as possible (either LR or Affinity Develop) before I ever star edits in AP?

Thanks,

Walt

 

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, Walt D said:

Should I develop the raw file as close to finish result as possible (either LR or Affinity Develop) before I ever star edits in AP?

Yes

1 hour ago, Walt D said:

I can adjust Exposure, highlights & contrast to get the same result. Unfortunately, as soon as I click "develop" and go from the Develop to the Photo Persona, much of this range is not available. 

Setup your documents in the Photo Persona with "New Document..." and then there on the panel's right side the color settings to overall higher color settings (a higher RGB bitdepth and wider gamut profile). So for example color format RGB/16 or Lab/16 instead of the default RGB/8 and a higher gamut ICC color profile like Adobe RGB or even ROM RGB instead of the default sRGB.