A Pro Secret for Shooting & Editing Colorful Outdoor Photos (VIDEO)
Today’s eye-opening tutorial is for those of you who struggle with flat, dull outdoor photos—even in beautiful locations and good light. Instructor Serge Ramelli demonstrates a beginner-friendly shooting and editing workflow that’s guaranteed to take your landscape imagery to the next level.
Ramelli is a globally-popular French-born photographer who’s portfolio contains spectacular landscape and cityscape images that set a very high standard. Here’s how he summarizes the episode below: “I’ll show you how to take incredibly colorful photos in ANY light, even when a sunset appears boring.”
The behind-the-scenes episode follows Ramelli in the stunning French Riviera, and it only takes him 13 minutes to reveal his complete process, including camera settings, composition advice, and simple editing tricks. Be sure to grab his timesaving FREE presets with a link in the description beneath the video.
Ramelli says he developed these time-proven techniques because of his love for vibrant cityscape and landscape photos that retain a realistic look by not going overboard during post processing. As you’ll see, the goal is to accentuate what he refers to as natural drama.
Be sure to watch until the end because Ramelli insists that his last trick is “absolutely mind-blowing.” He begins with a discussion of things not to do, the first of which is overexposing a shot. In fact, a bit of intentional underexposure can be key to optimizing light in certain conditions.
With his no-no’s out of the way Ramelli moves on to his suggestions for doing thinga correctly. He demonstrates how to expose for dramatic skies, the benefits of patience, and why “following the light is the key to capturing amazing colors.” He also reveals his favorite shot of the year which was captured with a long 30-second exposure.
Ramelli’s popular YouTube channel contains over 1,000 how-to like this one, so be sure to pay a visit and explore.
We also recommend watching our earlier tutorial featuring another successful landscape photographer who demonstrates a new Lightroom sky selection trick that delivers ideal natural-looking photographs with clean, refined masks.
