In my experience, one of the types of light that cameras have a difficult time capturing correctly is the subtle, glowing, ambient light you see early and late in the day in deep forest settings. It is a very soft light but it has a certain richness and luminosity to it, as if the foliage is almost lit from within.
“Fern Glade” using my soft light glow technique. Click to view larger.
An unadjusted raw file never quite captures it, and simply increasing saturation or contrast doesn’t render it accurately. The Orton technique and many other soft glow methods generally do a better job of increasing saturation and low frequency contrast in a way that is more satisfying, but I find that these techniques often create too much blur or glow, or they block up the shadows too much.
In this short video tutorial I share a couple of techniques for enhancing this type of deep forest light that I have found particularly effective. They work best with soft, subtle, low contrast light but you could experiment with higher contrast light as well and see what you get. (Make sure to click on the gear icon to view in 720p. For best viewing click on the YouTube icon and watch at 720p using the Large Viewer.)
If you have questions or comments leave me a message below or on YouTube. You can also check out my YouTube Channel for more image developing tutorials. You can also visit www.outdoorexposurephoto.com for complete sets of video tutorials and get more information on Tony Kuyper’s TKActions Panel.
Sean is an outdoor photographer, digital image developing enthusiast and photography educator based in Ashland, Oregon, where he resides with his wife and two sons. His previous career as a science teacher makes photography education a good fit. Sean teams up with fellow Photo Cascadia members leading workshops. He also teaches digital image developing classes, lectures and offers a series of Photoshop video tutorials.
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