Photoshop How To

If the headline above caught you by surprise, that’s likely because most of us use sliders to make a wide variety of adjustments in Photoshop and Lightroom. But according to one top pro, it’s time you took a different approach.

Photographer Mark Denney has an admitted “passion for landscape photography and the great outdoors,” which is clearly evident in his popular tutorials. In the video below you’ll see why is says the biggest turning point in his editing process occurred when he shifted away from using sliders to applying filters.

Denney’s aha moment resulted from a comparison of photos he edited using global adjustments with those in which he employed local filters. As he explains, “Most outdoor and landscape photos are comprised of areas of imbalance, and the majority of these imbalances can all benefit from using a targeted local filter.”

While watching this 17-minute tutorial you’ll gain a complete understanding of the difference between global adjustment sliders and local filter enhancements, and why the latter method can offer superior results. While demonstrating his preferred method, Denney provides an image edited with both techniques.

Denny’s point isn’t that you should never use sliders to edit an image, but rather that depending upon the scene and the image you’re working on, local filters are usually the best way to go. Take a look at his examples, and we think you’ll agree.

Denney provides a list of his landscape photography gear in the description below the video, where there are also links to four more tutorials. We suggest you visit Denney’s YouTube channel to see everything he has to offer.

You may also want to check out another video we posted recently, demonstrating how to achieve super sharp and contrast-rich landscape photographs.