I took the featured free RAW photo on Grand Manan Island during my driving trip to Atlantic Canada. The island is located in the middle of the Bay of Fundy between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
I was hooting with Sony a 6000 camera and my favorite wide-angle lens Sony 10-18mm f/4.
Exif Data:
- Camera: Sony a6000
- Lens: Sony 10-18mm f/4
- Aperture: f/8
- Shutter Speed: 1/250s
- ISO: 200
- Focal length: 13mm
The Bay of Fundy is famous for its high tides, the highest in the world, and foggy weather. When visiting the island, I love hiking along the high and rugged cliffs and capture how seascapes change because of enormous tides.
Free RAW Photos for Editing Library
When you edit the free RAW photo, balancing the exposure will be the main challenge. The image features a very bright sky in the background and dark cliffs in the foreground.
If you check the histogram of the unprocessed shot, you can see how wide the light’s dynamic range is. If the sky were slightly brighter, the photo’s dynamic range would be too wide for the camera’s sensor. I would need to bracket the shot and use the HDR technique.
Your first goal will be to reduce the image’s dynamic range by making the sky darker and recovering the foreground’s dark shadows.
And here is how the histogram should look like after you complete the first goal of reducing the dynamic range.
The second goal is to bring back the colors and textures of the boring rocks in the foreground.
Good luck with editing.
My RAW Editing Version
And here is my editing version of the free RAW image. You can access all my editing steps from the Snapshot panel of the Develop module in Lightroom.
My first goal was to straighten up the horizon. Typically, I pay attention to the horizon line while shooting, but I messed it up this time.
I used the Crop Overlay tool to straighten up the horizon. For more information, please check my dedicated tutorial here.
I also cropped the photo slightly to make composition tighter, but I kept the original 3:2 aspect ratio.
I used the Basic panel and Tone Curve panel to balance the exposure, the HSL, and the Calibration panels to enhance the colors.
The final touch was to clean up the foreground rocks with the help of the Spot Removal tool before converting to JPEG.
What About Copyright?
All free raw images I share, I took myself, and they belong to me. They are not sourced from the public. But they are still copyrighted.
You are free to edit my RAW photos. And if you want to share them on your blog or social media, go for it; all I am asking is to credit me with the link to my site. And you can not use them commercially.
Free RAW Photos Library
Please remember to download my free Lightroom develop presets for faster raw editing.