In this tutorial, Angie Birmingham walks viewers through a complete edit of an elephant wildlife photo using Luminar Neo. She begins by emphasizing the importance of shooting in RAW for maximum dynamic range. She then demonstrates how to import a single image, create a new album, and apply the HDR Merge feature, noting that HDR can amplify sky noise. Next, she explores preset options, adjusting their intensity to suit the image. The core of the tutorial covers mask creation—linear, radial, and brush masks—to selectively darken the foreground, brighten the elephant, and control halos. She adjusts shadows, highlights, contrast, and color saturation to achieve a realistic look. For noise reduction, she applies the Noiseless tool with a linear mask on the sky, uses the Remove Dust Spots tool, and finally employs a luminosity mask to further clean sky noise. Throughout, she provides practical tips, shows before‑and‑after comparisons, and ends with affiliate promotions, a call to action to like/subscribe, and an invitation for viewers to submit their own images for future edits.
Chapters
Okay, so before we get started on our edit, um, we're gonna edit an elephant today. We're gonna put him in HDR merge just to see how he turns out, and then we'll just kind of edit it from there, kind of show you my thought process as I go through each and every one of my images. But before we get started, I just want to mention that if you're not already shooting in RAW Um, you need to start, um, because JPEG images are basically a computer rendition of what you wanted to take. So if you're taking the time to go and shoot in manual mode or even in shutter priority, I mean, even in automatic, you really should be shooting in RAW because it captures more dynamic range, captures more information in the shadows, and also in the highlights so that when it comes right down to editing the image, you have more room to edit. I mean, granted, you can't just take the image and post it right to social media. You have to do a little bit of edit to it, but as long as your exposures are right, um, there shouldn't be much editing to do. Just a little adjustment to the shadows and highlights and maybe some contrast. And that's good. You should be good. All right, so let's jump on over to our Luminar and let's get started. All right, so let's go ahead and open up Luminar Neo, and from here I'm going to show you today how to import an image that's not already in your catalog over here. So we are going to go up here and we're going to hit Add Photo, and then you're going to go to your little finder And you're going to find where that image is. This particular image today, the elephant, he's located right here on this hard drive. So here he is. Now we're going to add him. And just like that, he's in the catalog. Now we're going to create a new album as well using this same image. So we're going to go here, we're going to go Create Album, and we're going to call this Sample Edit. There we go. Hit Return. Now he is in the album. So today we're going to use the HDR Merge, which is really easy. We're going to do a single image. And we're gonna drag it, we're gonna drop it, and you just simply hit Merge. Then it will pop out over here in HDR Merge, which you can't really see where it's at, but it's right here. So here he is. Now we're gonna grab him and we're gonna drag him down to Sample Edit. So that they are both in the same album. That way they'll show up side by side. You don't lose track of your edits. So as you can see, here's the before HDR Merge, and here's the after. HDR Merge did a fantastic job on this image, but one thing I want to bring to your attention is that when you do HDR merges I've found that a lot of times it does bring out noise in the sky because it's bringing out a lot of detail in that sky. You can see the sky before, you could kind of see a little bit of the detail, but now you really see the detail. Okay, so now let's jump on over into the— actually, you know what, let's go ahead and hit presets. And we'll see what kind of presets this thing has to offer. The Savannah Collection. So we could turn it into an Evening Chill. That one's not bad. No, definitely not. Black and White's not bad. Wild Edge. Oof, that really brings out the noise in the sky. I This one here looks pretty good. So if you click on the preset, then you can also dial down the intensity, which I find pretty cool. So yeah, that's, it's actually kind of a cool little preset there. Works pretty good with that particular image. So now we'll jump on over into edits, and let's just go on into the Develop Modular, and we're going to go into mask. And the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to do a linear, and I'm going to bring it up from the bottom because I really want to darken up this foreground So that it's not wanting your eye to go there. Then we're going to go— see how the really darkened up the foreground? So now we're going to close out of the Develop Modular, and we are going to go into the Develop Modular again. Notice how all the sliders are back to starting point. And we're going to go in here and we are going to— let's start with the radial mask on this elephant mask. Okay, then we'll go into brush, go in here, and we will erase some of it because we don't want it to bleed over. But I need to go in here and bring it up a little bit so that I can see I can see my lines. I don't want it to lighten up the bushes. I just want to lighten up him. This side's a little bit bigger. Kind of remove just a little bit along the lines of him to help reduce the possibility of those unwanted halos around your animal edits. Alright, that looks pretty good. Now we'll go into adjustments, and we're just going to go in and we're just gonna open up the shadows on him. That's all we're gonna do. All that to open up shadows. But that worked pretty good. Made him quite a bit brighter. Might brighten him up just a little bit more. Maybe add a little contrast. Highlights down a smidge. I need to open up those shadows a little bit more. There we go. Now we're gonna go into Mask and we're going to, we're gonna copy this mask so that we don't have to do it again. There we go. 'Cause we're gonna go down here into Enhance, go to Mask, go to Paste. Now we're gonna go over here, we're gonna just accent him just a little bit. Yeah, I'm liking, I'm liking what I'm seeing here so far. Okay, then we'll go into color, and I'm gonna do a mask again because I really want to bring some of those reds down because the dirt there in Africa that they roll in is red, but it's not quite that red. I just want to tone it down some, make it a little more realistic. So I'm just going to tone down the saturation. I think that worked out pretty good. All right, so go back, we'll take a look at our image. Do a before and after. Before and after. So far I'm liking what I'm seeing. So before we finish this edit, I have a couple extra little things I'm gonna do to it. I want to take you over to our affiliate Luminar Neo, and I just want to let you know that if you use this link on our website, the link will also be below in the comments, and use the discount code AB15, and you will get 15% off site-wide. And on this page, we also have a link to our gear, all the stuff that we have in our camera bags. Along with B&H, they're another one of our affiliates. This here is the Deal Zone where y'all— where you can get all your great deals. And right below that, I have a link to beginner camera gear that I recommend. And we also got a couple other affiliates: ProMediaGear, F-Stop Bag, Topaz Labs. And now we are also affiliates of DX O Pure Raw, and I will show you how that works into my workflow in the near future. So don't forget to like and subscribe and ring my bell so you'll get notified the next time I post a video. All right, so let's jump back in our edit and let's finish this guy up. So if you notice I went in and I darkened up this background here— or background— I darkened this foreground, but this right through here is still a little too bright. So I'm going to go into the Develop Modular again. Notice all the sliders are back to zero. That's because I am starting with another fresh slate. So this one, I'll probably go in, I'll probably just Brush it, but I'm not gonna do full strength, probably do about 50%. And I'll just kind of paint it in right through here. And go over here to shadows, we'll just kind of bring those shadows down. I think that did it. Yep, that did it. There you go. There you have it. So before we leave though, we are going to use this Noiseless, and we are going to— I think I'm going to mask it, use a lineal, and I'm only going to do it in the sky. See how that works out. Do low. I love how the little lines go and they kind of follow your mouse if you drag your mouse around. There we have it, the noiseless. So— oh, if you look up here, looks like I had something on my lens. Oh, I see. Let's go in. We got one more thing to do before we leave. Go into Erase and use this amazing tool right here, Remove Dust Spots. Watch how they just disappear. We'll close it, zoom into that corner. See what a great job it did? Removing those spots. So it looks like we still have some noise there. So there's one more way to get rid of noise, and that is to isolate the sky. Go in here, go to luminosity, and just zoom in. And we'll just really crank it up since it's Doing it just on the sky. So there's your before and after. Really helped. That really helped a lot. Okay. All right, so once again, don't forget to like and subscribe and ring my bell so you'll get notified the next time I post a video. And that is the conclusion to today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it, and don't forget that if you want me to edit one of your images, email it to me in the— to the email listed below, and I'll edit it on a future video. All right, thanks for joining me. Have a great day.
