The making of Kearsarge Lake Outlet Stream

Sometimes I get asked what sort of processing I do on my fine art prints. So here's a straightforward look at how I came to the final result (master file) for my latest fine-art print Kearsarge Lake Outlet Stream. This particular image is digital, so it's a camera raw file to start out. In the future I'll walk you through the same process for my 4x5 black and white images which naturally will include more detail on the actual exposure itself.

This image was taken mid afternoon in Kings Canyon National Park in strong light which makes for excellent black and white - at the time I took the image a strong black and white was what I had in mind so we're not really going to consider color here.

The majority of my workflow is in Adobe Lightroom, and in this particular case Lightroom 2.0. The first step I go through is a straightforward raw conversion from the original file:

Step 1 - Raw Conversion

Then we convert to black and white. The image below is just to show what a basic black and white conversion looks like from this image. You'll notice that the tonality is similar to the color version, just with color information removed.

Step 2 - B+W Conversion

You'll also notice it's not the most exciting image around at this stage - it's flat and lacking contrast to my eye and probably to your eye also. So next we adjust the color mix for black and white. What we're doing here is essentially adding a red filter to the black and white conversion process. It's the same effect as if I had used a red filter on the lens when I took the image initially. If I was shooting 4x5 on print film I would have used a red filter here.

Step 3 - B+W Filtration

So there we go with the Red Filter. Now it's starting to look better. I'm still not happy with some details though so we'll work on those now. Firstly, the sky is still a little light for my liking. Adding a Neutral Density Graduated Filter to the sky takes care of that:

Step 4 - ND Grad Filter on the Sky

Also you'll notice that the trees around the lake are too dark to see any detail - we'll want to dodge them a bit to lighten them up and bring out some detail there:

Step 5 - Dodge the lakeside trees

Earlier, during our color mixing/red filter stage, you may have noticed that the lake ended up darker. I'm not so keen on this and so we'll bring back some of the sparkle to the water by dodging that too:

Step 6 - Dodge the lake

We're getting there with this process!

We still have some details I want to sort out: I'm going to burn the mountain ridges that lead from the top of each side of the frame down to the center as they are just a little too dark at present. This will help to define the lakeside trees and improve the definition of the mountains:

Step 7 - Dodge the ridges

Lastly I want to improve the brightness of the snow and cloud highlights - so we effectively dodge those areas just a small amount to give us the final stage result:

![Step 8 Dodge the highlights

All that's left now is some sharpening and noise reduction for printing and it's off to print some Artist Proofs so I can see how it looks as a true photographic print on fiber paper. From there a few more adjustments are made before it's a wrap and ready for gallery and exhibition printing. The prints are true silver gelatin photographic prints on Ilford Fiber Base paper - this particular edition is then selenium toned by hand. Below is the final master image with a link through to the print page:

Kearsarge Lake Outlet Stream »

Footnote:

You'll notice that all I'm doing here digitally is the same as I would do in the darkroom were these the "Good old days" - I'm dodging and burning, adding contrast and filtering, in the same manner as a traditional darkroom print. I'm not manipulating the image more than what it was originally intended to be.

So I hope that gives some insight into the creative process after the image has been taken.