29/05/2026
⚡ MY LIGHTNING POST HAS HIT 4K!!! ⚡
I honestly never thought in a million years that many people would see my photos, I'm absolutely blown away!! Thank you so much to everyone who shared it! 🙏
Now... to the people in the comments convinced my photos were AI generated and "screenshotted from a video" 👀 I understand why.. I also can't believe a storm that dramatic actually happened over North Wales 😂
So here's exactly how I edited them:
💡 LIGHT
Exposure: -1.06 | Contrast: +15 | Highlights: -46 | Shadows: +82 | Whites: -30 | Blacks: +20
The long exposure meant the overall image was quite bright, so I pulled the exposure down to stop the sky blowing out. Highlights were dropped heavily to retain detail in the lightning bolts themselves, if you push these too high, the bolts just become white blobs! Shadows were lifted significantly to bring out the detail in the town and foreground without it looking too dark and muddy. The slight contrast boost helped keep everything from looking too flat after lifting those shadows.
🌫️ EFFECTS
Clarity: -10 | Dehaze: +35 | Vignette: 0 | Grain: 0
This combination might seem counterintuitive… Why reduce clarity but add dehaze? Dropping clarity slightly softened the overall image and gave the sky a more atmospheric, almost ethereal glow. The dehaze at +35 was the real game changer! It cut through the natural haze over the water and made the far coastline and storm clouds much more defined and dramatic.
🎨 COLOR
Temp: 7,200 | Tint: +26 | Vibrance: +19 | Saturation: -10
The raw file looked quite cool and grey — not at all how the storm actually felt! I pushed the temperature warm to bring back that intense purple-pink glow the lightning was casting across the sky. The tint shift towards magenta enhanced that stormy purple feel. I used vibrance rather than saturation to keep the town lights from going too orange and oversaturated.
🌈 COLOR MIXER
Red: Hue +10, Sat -11, Lum +5 → toned down the orange-red in the street lights so they felt warm but not overwhelming
Yellow: Hue +3, Sat +20, Lum +42 → boosted the yellow street lights to make the town glow feel rich and golden
Purple: Hue -38, Sat +5, Lum +22 → shifted the purples in the sky slightly more towards blue-violet, giving the storm clouds more depth
Magenta: Hue -30, Sat -10, Lum -27 → darkened and desaturated the magenta tones to stop the sky looking too pink and keep it feeling stormy and moody
One thing worth mentioning, each photo from that night needed slightly different tweaks depending on the strength and brightness of the lightning bolts in that particular shot, so the exact numbers varied between images.
These edits definitely won't work for everyone!! It all depends on your own photo, your camera, the conditions on the night, and the look you're going for. But hopefully this gives someone a starting point or a bit of inspiration if you're ever lucky enough to catch a storm! ⚡🌩️
Thank you all again from the bottom of my heart for the love on that original post, it truly means the world 🤍
