Shooting directly into the sun causes all sorts of problems for landscape photographers, some of which can be handled in the camera. Other times however, post-processing is required to make a perfect fix.

This quick tutorial from the School of Photography walks you through a simple Photoshop workflow that tones things down with precision, softens harsh whites, and restores natural warm tone to the scene. Instructor Marc Newton is a successful British photographer, author, and an expert at all thing Adobe. He provide a very effective solution to today’s challenge in barely five minutes.

Newton concentrates on one of the most common problems we face when attempting to make late afternoon photographs when the sun is about to drop below the horizon; namely, those dramatic sunstars we all love are overexposed with nothing but burnt-out white pixels in the center.

His demonstration seaside shot is perfectly composed, with beautiful water reflections in the foreground and imposing rock formations throughout the frame. But as you can see, the appropriate tones in the setting sun are totally devoid of color—spoiling the impact of the important element.

As Newton says, “We don’t want that pure white, we want a slight orange hue for a realistic look that doesn’t punch you straight in the face.” Mellowing out the sun also improves surrounding areas of the sky.

This quick restoration is appropriate for Photoshop users of all skill levels, and it’s so easy to accomplish that we’ll forego our usual summary and let Newton demonstrates how it works. But trust us, your sunset photographs will never be the same. Once you’re done watching, head over to the School of Photography YouTube channel and join the other 250K subscribers who appreciate Newton’s concise shooting and editing advice.

Yesterday we brought you an image-editing tutorial on a related topic; namely, how to rehabilitate dreary landscape photographs by adding natural-looking light rays with a few clicks in Lightroom Classic.