Lightroom Photo Merge | Photographer Editing Tricks for blown-out sunset

How do you fix a blown out sky when you've shot in RAW? Well, my friend, you can do it in less than 5 minutes... with Lightroom and Photoshop. (I did do this in purpose, because I knew I'd be able to make this look good in post-processing) You need to know how to use layers, layer masks, and knowledge of blending layer masks. That's all... here we go:

IN LIGHTROOM

In Lightroom, edit your for the blown out area: I went extra dark/underexposed because I wanted to show how dramatic the sunset was (in real life it was almost red). Check the settings here:

Right click on the photo in the strip, "Create Virtual Copy"

Then adjust exposure for the subject... keeping the real feeling of the photo, it's not quite fully exposed... sort of flat, which is fine with me for the look I was going for. I kept my highlights down (this helps especially around the veil) but upped my exposure.

Now, select and right-click the photos you've edited, click "Edit In > Open as Layers in Photoshop"

IN PHOTOSHOP

Open them up... place one on top of the other, create a layer mask, and voila! (this is the 3 second recap I did just for the tutorial... the real photo is at the end :)

BACK IN LIGHTROOM

These are the variations you'll see in Lightroom (as long as you save the TIF) of this one photo:

Final merged photo.... in less than 3 minutes.