Flambient Editing Tutorial Using LR Enfuse For Natural Looking Results

I had quite a few people in the comments for a tutorial on using LR Enfure and flash to create natural-looking photos for real estate so in this video I will walk you through my entire process.
I will be making a video on how to create the actions that I use later but they are just standard flambient blending in Photoshop.
00:00 Lightroom
07:15 Photoshop
13:40 Conclusion
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[@dataventurer9998]

I just watched again and took notes. Here are the settings for the Enfuse Preset, starts at 1:22 in the video: LR Enfuse Preset: (1:22) Camera Flat Highlights -75 Shadow +60 Whites +32 Blacks -5 Texture +16 Clarity +14 Dehaze +5 Sharpening Amount 68 Radius 1.4 Detail 15 Masking - hold ALT, drag slider around to adjust. Anything that’s white will have sharpening applied, black indicates Sharpening is masked out. COPY/PASTE those settings across all photos in that set, Sync. Add Lens Corrections for your lens Move Exposure to the Middle of the histogram With take a crack at reverse engineering your Photoshop stacking Action next... Thank you! Good stuff. I caught your CTRL-W sequence to close the flattened photo in Photoshop. I didn't know that move. Maybe that will keep Photoshop's memory use to a minimum...

[@WillGayPhoto]

Much appreciated. I will try and add something like this into the description of my future videos. I am learning as I go here on what people need and feel is valuable to them. Great stuff!

[@jamiewarner4381]

Hi Will, Is there a video with actions and presets available?

[@WillGayPhoto]

So I have been on the fence about this. The only reason is that there are a million things that can go wrong with importing actions etc and I would feel really bad if I put something out there that was supposed to be helping peole but was actually causing problems. I am not an expert in these things and while I am proficient at what I do and making things work when problems arise, making sure other don't encounter them during the process is whole different monster. But I will think about this and do more research and see what I can come up with.

[@ReframephotoGR]

That was a nice one! Thank you for sharing your technique.

[@WillGayPhoto]

My pleasure!

[@jbphoto7493]

Impressive. I need to go back and see how you create your images

[@jahivan]

another awesome vid! thanks for all the info.. i learned about LR enfuse from you and its a game changer.. Im not familiar with flambient bc it looks complicated .. but if it makes windows pull easier (like in the video).. im interested then. You are like me, i dont like fake looking windows.. yours are just the way a also edit them.

[@WillGayPhoto]

Thank you! really appreciate the comment. Flambient can be intimidating and it can feel quite complicated. Once you understand the basic formula tho and what is going on you start to get a better grasp of situations where it will be difficult and where it will be easy and how to deal with them.

[@TariqHasanAnjan]

I've watched almost 20 videos on interior architecture photgraphy and yours are by far the best, straight to the point, I just have a question, why do u prefer LREnfuse over default lightroom hdr blending? is it better? Does it do good job when u have say like 100 stacks

[@WillGayPhoto]

Personal preference. Thats really it. I think a lot of photography in general deals in absolutes. X is the best brand, Y is the best editing software, Z is the greatest technique. For me I like to use what feels right, what equipment, cameras and software balance ease of use (for me) and work with my style of photography. If a camera doesn't feel right in my hand, or a RAW file does react to my edits the way I want, or a software doesn't manipulate color in a way that feels good to me I don't use it. I have seen other create stunning architecture work using luma-blending with no flash, some make mind blowing work with 20+ flash frames and 10 different pieces of software, etc etc. Its all personal preference. I have done this, at scale for over 10 years. I have used every software out there and LR Enfure has been the best one for me and my situation. I like to show it off and sing its praises but a lot works and if you can get results you are happy with using Lightrooms HDR, do it. I just don't personally like it is all.

[@dataventurer9998]

Will, you "brought the goods" in this video! The steps you took are understandable. I especially was intrigued with the way you used the two masked layers at the top of the stack in Photoshop to make edits. You used Smart Objects - is that so you could pull up Camera Raw and change that top layer to use for the windows? I haven't seen Smart Object layers used before in real estate tutorials. That looks like a nice trick to use to adjust for the windows within Photoshop! You mentioned touching up the color casting - that is an area that would be helpful to see your steps on because there are different ways of accomplishing that. I'll need to try adding that second ambient layer at 50% Normal mode on top of the 50/50 luminosity layers to see if that helps with brushing out the orange cast that shows up from using a Luminosity blend. Thank you also for identifying the slider settings for your pre-HDR blend brackets. That makes it easy to grab those settings and create a Lightroom preset to try out. I already have a couple Photoshop Actions for the 50/50 blend and auto-align. I'll watch for your video walking through the steps to create that 5-layer stack from the flash and ambient layers. And at some point a tutorial on using RayaPro or Lumenzia, etc. to address the windows, please??? Thank you so much for your time and effort to share with the community!!!

[@WillGayPhoto]

Thank you! I appreciate the kind comment and feedback. I will make sure to add a color casting and Rayapro tutorial to my list. The actions I should have out soon. I got slammed this week with a new client and 13 new properties I had to get scheduled and done so its taken me away from the content creation a little bit. I will show you how I make all my actions and what each of them do. I don't always use smart objects. For the vast majority of me real estate work I just open them as layers. However if I am doing some high-end work or something that needs that really tight fine control I will open them as smart object layers. You are correct, having access to all that RAW data can really help with windows and areas that are too bright or dark. It can be a little overkill for some but for me its just how I have always liked to work. The 50% layer (or whatever works for you) has always really helped me keep those orange shadows in check. A lot of this is very fine, subtle changes as opposed to harsh ones because thats what looks the most natural and pleasing. There isn't a one size fits all way to do it but this is how I have learned to work quickly while still maintaining quality and making money.

[@thomak28]

@WillGayPhoto have you had any problems with Enfuse plugin to reimport photos to LR again after the process has finished? Occasionally it works :) But mostly getting these reimport errors while using Win10 with the last version of the LR

[@WillGayPhoto]

I have never had an issue with it not reimporting the images. Does the error file give you any inidication of whats going on? I have setup Enfuse across quite a few different PCs over the years and never had an issue. Im sorry to hear that you are having issues.

[@thelongarmmarine]

Curious…I, too, shoot with my AD200 attached to my cage, but lifted up via a very small monopod…but do you fire your flash on the 0 exposure, or slower shutter speed…I’ve been dropping my speed down 2 stops, but am not satisfied with the result…generally @500 ISO & 1/4 power on the AD200 for most average rooms…thanks

[@WillGayPhoto]

I use my users settings and manual mode to switch between my 5 brackets and flash. My flash it my 6th frame I take. Depending on the lighting conditions outside I shoot at 1/200th, 200iso F8 and 1/8th power. Power varies on the size of the room. I find the hardest thing is to balance a good exposure through the windows with a good flash power in the room.

[@thelongarmmarine]

@@WillGayPhoto so I took a few practice shots bin my house…set the exposure @0, then popped a 1/4, a 1/2, and a full power shot, WTH the AD 200 on the mini monopod/cage, with a MagMod sphere on it…blended 3 HDR shots with Enfuse, then used Joe Gustofosen's method of blending the flash with color/darken modes & tweaked in LR…kinda satisfied with the results…

[@AustinFSX1]

I would like to know more about how you go about setting up your drive to a network to access from anywhere.

[@WillGayPhoto]

I use a Synology DS218+, hardwired into my network. I keep the Lightroom catalog on my computer but use the network drive as the storage location when I import the photos as Lightroom will not let you use a catalog over a network but it will let you import and manage photos across a network drive. Importing can be a little slow, but working over the network I have not really felt a slowdown of any kind.

[@AustinFSX1]

@@WillGayPhoto okay. But this this allow you to access the drive without being connected to the same network?

[@tannermiller9605]

So is this an HDR merge using enfuse and then a flambient blend or are you using the flash and ambient in the enfuse module?

[@WillGayPhoto]

Enfuse is a LR plugin. I use Enfuse to blend my 5 Brackets together then take that Enfuse file along with the flash frames and blend them together using the standard flambient blending thats been around for years in photoshop.

[@_PainxDrugs22.__]

Hii sir give me this wrk AM already 2 years experince this wrk... Pls give me this Oppturity..