The Landscape Photography Book

Now Set Your White and Black Points

Now that the white balance is set, the next step is to expand the image’s overall tonal range (getting the most out of it without clipping the whites or blacks) by setting the white and black points. What that means is I get the whites in the image as bright as I can get them without blowing them out. Then, I get the blacks as dark as I can get them without turning them solid black. There is a manual way to do this, but thankfully, Lightroom (or Photoshop’s Camera Raw) will do this for you automatically, as long as you know the “secret handshake”: In Lightroom, press-and-hold the Shift key, then simply double-click ...