WARNING: This challenge and Luminar 4 are both outdated and obsolete. A better option is to do my newest, most up-to-date photo editing challenge HERE!

Today’s photo editing challenge is all about bringing out detail in your image. The example image you’ll be working on is a macro shot of a pocket watch (with an optional kitty face close-up to work with too).

You will learn how to enhance detail and sharpness in your image, and how to do so selectively using a mask. That means you can apply the details to one area of the image, and not to others. It sounds hard, but it’s easy if you follow the steps with me.

Your challenge today is to get the hang of doing local adjustments so you can really target your editing. This will help you do tone control as well, and really make your images stand out.

Here are the before and after images for today’s challenge.

The before photo used in the photography challenge on photo editing, a pocket watch straight out of the camera with no edits — Before – straight from the camera.

pocket watch after editing in luminar 4 photo editing software — After editing in Luminar 4.

New Challenge for 2021: With the launch of Luminar AI, we’ve created a brand new 5-day challenge using its amazing artificial intelligence features. Luminar AI has a free 7-day trial available (I provide that for you), which will allow you to follow along with the NEW video tutorials. If you’re new to photo editing, I recommend you take on the 5-day challenge.

If you already own Luminar 4 you can still do this challenge and practice while improving your editing skills.

Photography Challenge themes for the week

Over the course of these 7 days, we’ll be working with these photography themes and practicing these editing techniques:

Street photography – learn about basic edits like contrast and color adjustments and how to apply a Look or preset.
Portrait and people photography – learn how to do skin retouching and facial enhancements the easy way, and keep it looking natural.
Black and white conversion – see how to do it the right and wrong way, and how to take your b/w images to another creative level with split toning.
Details and masking – you’ll learn how to do local edits that apply to just part of the image, and how to enhance sharpness and detail in those targeted areas.
Landscape photography – take your nature photos up a notch, bring out details in highlight and shadows areas, and see how to replace the sky (not everyone’s cup of tea but you’ll see how easy it is with Luminar 4).
Texture overlay – learn how to give your images a fine art style with a texture overlay (you’ll even get a few of mine to play with and try out)
Night photography – learn how to apply many of the techniques you already learned and bring it all together to enhance and bring out details in a stunning night photo I took in Japan.

Step 1 – Photo Editing Software

You’ll need to have a copy of Luminar 4 photo editing software already installed.

Step 2 – watch the video tutorial

Next, watch the video below and follow along if you want. Feel free to pause if you need to, or rewind and watch any parts again. If you have any questions just leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

Step 3 – Process the image

Now it’s your turn!

Experiment and play around with different filters and sliders, and try some of the built-in Looks that come with Luminar 4. Here are two more variations I made of this image.

You’ve likely seen my cat Munchkin as my “helper” when I wrote the Ultimate Guide to Macro Photography series on this website previously.

Before photo of cat to show details in the fur — Before photo of my cat Munch showing lack of detail in her fur.

After processing in Luminar 4 the details in the fur are much more clear — After processing in Luminar 4 the details in the fur can be seen more clearly, but notice that only the face has been sharpened and enhanced and the fur on her body remains less sharp.

Feel free to get as creative as you like with this. Choose which parts to bring out detail and which to blur or deemphasize. Use the same techniques for tone control to add or remove contrast and brightness.

AI Photo Editing: Read my review of Luminar Neo, the next generation photo editing using AI. It’s an industry game changer. If you’ve already got it, enrolling in my Luminar Neo course should be able to get you up and editing in days instead of weeks. Check it out.

Lastly, we want to see what you’ve created – your final finished version (or a few of them). This is how to share your saved image.

Use the commenting system on the bottom of this page to share your image, how you did it, and any experiences you had while doing the challenge. You can also share on social media using the hashtag #DPM-7DayChallenge

More Photography Challenges: check out our entire collection of photography challenges. You’ll find our daily and monthly challenges with lots of ideas and inspiration for creative photos. Perfect for beginners or experienced alike.

Conclusion

By now if you’ve been following along every day you should have learned a few things about photo editing. Make sure to practice and try them out on your own images as well.

Keep going and learning. You can do this!

Cheers,

Photo Editing Challenge Day 4 – Details and Masking