One of the primary goals of landscape photographers is to arrive at a “correct” exposure, and we regularly post tutorials on this subject to help get the job done. But in the quick tutorial below you’ll see why certain types of scenes look much better by adding a bit of intentional overexposure during the editing process.
What consists of an accurately exposed image is certainly a subjective matter, but one of our favorite pros insists that significantly overexposing a photo made in harsh light is definitely the way to go. It’s certainly possible to do this in the camera, but there’s a simple post-processing technique that often provides more control and precision for achieving the exact look you want.
German pro Christian Mohrle is an acclaimed landscape photographer and a very adept instructor, and he walks you through this unique step-by-step edit in barely seven minutes. A quick comparison of his before/after images will surely encourage you to give this technique a try.
Be sure to download his sample image in the description beneath the video before clicking the “Play” button. That way you’ll be able to make the changes yourself as Mohrle describes the process. The image in question is already somewhat overexposed, and Mohrle’s original intent was to employ exposure blending to pull out more highlight detail in the brightest portions of the sky.
Ultimately, though, he decided that the bright glow around the sun was quite amazing, so he decided to further accentuate this effect with a little help from Lightroom. His first step is a few basic adjustments to prepare the image for the cool tricks that follow. He changes the Profile to Adobe Landscape for more base saturation, modifies White Balance for a slightly warmer look, and adjusts Tint to eliminate a slight purple case.
Now that the image looks much better Mohrle turns to masking to further improve the shot. This is a simple task that’s followed by a bit of color grading and sharpening. And now the image is complete!
There’s much more to see about shooting and editing landscape photos on Mohrle’s popular YouTube channel, so be sure to take a look.
We also suggest you check out another tutorial we posted earlier, with five handy Lightroom tricks you probably don’t know.
There are numerous photographers who turn to Photoshop instead of Lightroom to edit their photos, and in the tutorial below we’re going to demonstrate one of the several reasons for this choice. It’s the simple and easy-to-use app built into Photoshop called Adobe Bridge.
As you’ll see, Bridge is pretty much functionally the same as Lightroom’s Library module, except for one major timesaving advantage: You don’t have to go through a formal import process. As image-editing expert Anthony Morganti explains, “You just navigate to where your images are in your system, and then you can start working on them immediately.”
This approach is incredibly handy, especially if you capture numerous images during a shoot. Morganti uses the example of a photographer who shoots hundred of images at a wedding, and doesn’t want to go through the cumbersome and time-consuming task of importing them into Lightroom. You’ll find this method helpful whether you shoot sports, landscapes, portraiture, or virtually any other type of photos.
Simply put, it goers like this: “You just download the images from a memory card to a folder on your system, and then navigate to the folder using Adobe Bridge.” Then, within Bridge, you can quickly cull the photos, decide which ones you want to edit, and immediately get the job done using Camera Raw. For complicated tasks you can move out of Bridge and edit the images in Photoshop if you prefer.
In this episode Morganti walks you through a basic workflow using Adobe Bridge to quickly locate and edit your images. He begins by noting another advantage of this approach rather than using Lightroom—especially for those with less-powerful computers. Because Bridge is a leaner program, you’ll find that it may be noticeably faster if Lightroom bogs down your computer.
Bottom line: The 17 minutes you spending watching this video will pay off in spades in the future by speeding up everything you do in post. So follow along as Morganti demonstrates the process, and then add Adobe Bridge to your Photoshop bag of tricks.
Be sure to pay a visit to Morganti’s instructional YouTube tutorial, where you’ll find numerous tips and tricks for shooting and editing your work.
We also suggest you watch a helpful Photoshop tutorial we posted earlier, explaining how to use Selective Color for making landscape photos with vibrant foliage.
