In this tutorial we’re going to be creating a vivid black and white night time silhouette look for our image. We’re going to be utilizing our presets from the SLR Lounge Lightroom Presets v5 to create our black and white stylized image.

[Note: In the new Lightroom Presets v5, we have revamped all of the presets to improve image tonality and quality, allowing you to achieve even more amazing results. We’ve also added 95 new presets to reach a total of 311 presets in what is the gold standard of Lightroom image processing. In this series we’ll be going over how to use the new v5 presets to create great looking photos. Click Here to learn more or purchase the system.]

With each of our Ordinary to Extraordinary Edits, we’re going to first be going through how we create our effects with the SLR Lounge Lightroom Presets v5, then we’ll be going through the details in the develop settings so everyone can understand exactly how we get to a specific look. This way, whether you have the presets or not, everyone can benefit from watching this video or reading the article below.

Lightroom Presets v5 Mixology Recipe

My Mixology

• 01-30 BASE – VIVID: 30b. Vivid – Import + Profile (RESET)
• 01-30 BASE – VIVID: 32b. Heavy Crush – B&W
• Graduated Filter: 03 Burn (Darken) -0.5 Stops
• 02-30 CURVES – ANTIQUE B&W: 33d. Neutral Punch – B&W Azure
• 04-00 SFX – COLOR SCHEMES: 03e. Blue/Blue

Watch the Lightroom Video Tutorial

Complete Written Tutorial

We start by using the “01-30 BASE – VIVID: 30b. Vivid – Import + Profile (RESET)” preset. For landscapes we like to use the “+Profile (RESET)” because it reads the meta data and makes lens corrections accordingly.

Now we’re going to select the “01-30 BASE – VIVID: 32b. Heavy Crush” preset. This preset adds more black into the image, and we’ll have to raise the Exposure to see more details in the foreground.

The top half of the image is a little bright so we’re going to add a Graduated filter with our “03 Burn (Darken) -0.5 Stops)” preset to bring down the exposure. Then we’re going to adjust the Exposure of the filter to -0.4 to make the effect more subtle. Then we’re going to pull another Graduated filter from the bottom with the “03 Burn (Darken) -0.5 Stops)” preset to bring focus into our bird.

Now we’re going to adjust the Crop of our image. We’re selecting a 16×10 ratio and composing our frame so that the bird and sun are both in the image.

We’re going to select our “02-30 CURVES – ANTIQUE B&W: 33d. Neutral Punch – B&W Azure” preset because it adds a blue tint to our image, and adds to our “moonlight silhouette” effect.

Now we’re going to add the “04-00 SFX – COLOR SCHEMES: 03e. Blue/Blue” preset to really make the Blue’s pop in this image.  It also adds to the “moonlight” glow and nighttime silhouette effect.

In our Develop Settings we have an Exposure adjustment of +0.67. Our “01-30 BASE – VIVID: 32b. Heavy Crush – B&W” preset raised the Contrast and dropped the Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks. The Clarity is raised to boost the mid tone contrast. In the Tone Curve we have our subtle contrast boosting “S” curve. The Split Toning has light blue in the Highlights and a darker blue in the Shadows and it’s creating a really nice tone on tone look to the image. We have our standard Sharpening settings applied to this image and even when zoomed into the bird, it looks great. Here’s what our Develop settings look like after our presets are applied.

This is what our image looks like before and after our presets are applied.

Before

After

Conclusion and Learn More

We hope you all enjoyed this tutorial. If you are interested in learning more or purchasing the SLR Lounge Lightroom Presets v5, please click any of the links in this article.

Stay tuned for more SLR Lounge Weekly Edits!