Kockengense Windmill – Kockengen – Netherlands

The 2018 Edit

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This Kockengse Windmill image above was captured in 2018. At the time I merged the bracketed captures with Photomatix Essentials 4 HDR software. The vibrant mode was my favorite and resulted in bright and somewhat exaggerated output. Editing was done with Adobe Elements 14.

Nowadays I use primarily Addobe Lightroom and Photoshop. I wondered if a new edit would change the result of this Kockengense Windmill image dramatically. So I asked AI the following:

Hi Claude, I uploaded a HDR photomerge of Kockengense Windmill from 3 images. What can I do in Lightroom and Photoshop to get a good result?

The answer:

I had a look at the file’s metadata — good info here even without opening the raw pixels. A few things stand out:

• It’s a merged HDR DNG from your Samsung NX500 (IsMergedHDR=True), built from bracketed shots taken 2018-07-03 at 21:14 — so a sunset shot.
• Subject/description says it’s the Kockengense Windmill (a 1675 pumping mill) in the Green Heart, with contrails from Schiphol air traffic visible in the sky.
• The Lightroom edit history shows this DNG is currently unedited — White Balance “As Shot,” Temp 5000/Tint +10, and every tone slider (Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, etc.) sitting at 0. So you’re starting from a flat, full dynamic-range base — exactly where you want to be before you start pushing sliders.

Here’s a workflow that suits this kind of scene (backlit mill silhouette against a bright sunset sky, water in the foreground):

In Lightroom (do the heavy lifting here)

1. Global tone first

• Since this Kockengense Windmill capture is a real HDR merge (not a single raw), you have a lot more headroom in Highlights/Whites than a normal raw file — don’t be shy pulling Highlights and Whites down to shape the sun/sky without banding.
• Set white balance manually rather than trusting “As shot” — sunset scenes often read a touch cool/magenta off a merge; warm it slightly and dial Tint to taste.
• Use the Tone Curve for an overall contrast shape before touching local tools.

2. Local adjustments (this is where HDR merges shine)

• Sky: Select Sky (AI mask) → tame highlights around the sun, deepen the color transition, maybe add a subtle radial gradient centered on the sun disc.
• Mill/foreground silhouette: Select Subject or a brush mask → lift shadows a little if you want detail in the mill rather than a pure silhouette, or leave it crushed for drama.
• Water: separate mask to control reflections/contrast without affecting the sky.

3. Clean up

• Defringe / Chromatic Aberration: turn on “Remove Chromatic Aberration” — high-contrast edges (mill against bright sky) are prone to purple/green fringing.
• Dehaze: small amount can help separate the mill from a hazy sunset sky, but goes muddy fast — use sparingly and locally rather than globally.
• Contrails: those plane trails you mentioned can either be embraced (leave them, they add to the “modern life” story) or removed — that removal is much easier in Photoshop.

When to hand off to Photoshop

Go to Photoshop (Edit In → Photoshop) when you need:

• Contrail/plane-trail removal — Content-Aware Fill or Spot Healing on a duplicated layer of this Kockengense Windmill image works well on smooth sky gradients like this.
• Luminosity masking / advanced dodge & burn — for finer control over the mill’s silhouette shape vs. the sky gradient than Lightroom’s masks give you.
• Sky gradient smoothing — if the HDR merge introduces any banding in the sky (common with wide, smooth sunset gradients), a slight Gaussian-blurred luminosity mask + subtle noise/grain add-back fixes it.
• Final sharpening — do it last, on the flattened/merged file, output-sharpened for your intended use (screen vs. print).

Export settings

• Round-trip as 16-bit ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB between Lightroom and Photoshop to preserve the extra dynamic range you captured — don’t drop to 8-bit/sRGB until your final export.
• Save the Photoshop work on this Kockengense Windmill image as a layered TIFF/PSD if you want to keep masks editable, then export your final JPEG from Lightroom afterward for consistent output sharpening/metadata.