Nature Photos That Pop: Use LR’s Color Contrast Tools (VIDEO)

Here’s another eye-opening tutorial from German landscape specialist Christian Mohrle whose popular YouTube channel is full of shooting and editing videos designed for photographers of all skill levels. Today’s episode explains how to employ Lightroom’s Color Contrast tools to transform flat, dull scenes into images that simply can’t be ignored.

Mohrle has been shooting since 2009 and has the advantage of living near beautiful Lake Constance in the south of his country. Like all of his straightforward lessons, this one outlines a step-by-step process with clear illustrations so that you understand how to put color contrast to work. We encourage you to download his sample Raw file with a link beneath the video.

He strongly recommends that you begin all important edits with whatever basic, global adjustments are necessary to properly prepare the original shot for the transformational masking and color grading magic that follows. As you can see, the photo is super dark, even though it was captured at a high ISO setting.

Thus, significant noise can be expected to intrude when lightening the darkest portions of the frame, therefore the first step is opening Lightroom’s Details panel and clicking on Denoise. He then begins recovering lost detail by expanding the Basic panel and changing the profile from Adobe Color to Adobe Landscape which immediately improves shadows and provides a boost in base saturation.

Mohrle also increases exposure, shadows, and blacks to further balance out the divergent tones. Other preliminary enhancements include dropping highlights while raising the whites for more “punch,” and fixing an unwanted green cast. He also introduces a bit of texture and dehaze, while cutting clarity to achieve the soft, dreamy look he desires.

It’s now finally time to enhance color and boost color contrast, and Mohrle explains his reasoning like this: “The top  portion of this image is rather cold due to the overcast sky, and that’s how it should be.” On the other hand, the warmer tones scattered throughout the foreground need to be accentuated to create compelling color contrast between the top and bottom areas in the scene.

Mohrle demonstrates the masks he recommends, along with the appropriate color-grading modifications. The lesson concludes with careful sharpening and a focus-stacking technique. Once you’re done watching head over to the Phlog Photography YouTube channel for more enlightening landscape photography videos.