Edit Amazing Landscape Photos in Under 2 Minutes [PS or LR]
Today, I’ll show you how to improve your landscape photos with with Camera RAW or Lightroom and Photoshop. No crazy things–just making them more vibrant and just overall better. I'll also add a few tips that I got when studying photography a looooong time ago...
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Edit your landscape photos, no matter what…
You need to edit your photos no matter what. Landscape photos, portrait photos, street photos it doesn't matter, they all need at least some basic editing. Maybe some people tell you that they never edit their photos but first of all, if you shoot jpeg, the camera edits the photos for you.
The camera adds contrast, sharpening, and adjusts colors depending on which picture profile you use. Also, I've never seen a RAW file, straight out of camera that looks great. It's never happened to me... ever! Try to make it look as good as you can while shooting because it makes the whole process easier, but, if you shoot in RAW, you justneed to edit your photos.
Now, how far you go, that's up to you. You can just add some contrast and adjust the white balance or you can start replacing skies or swap faces. All fine by me but I'm more of a “don't make it too crazy” kinda guy. I like my photos to stand out but I also want them to look natural.
How to edit amazing landscape photos in under two minutes…
Landscape photography should be fun
When it comes to taking landscape photo, the main thing for me is to have fun because there are all these rules that people make up. You have to shoot at f/9 or 11 or you have to have something in the foreground to make it interesting or you have to use a tripod. I mean, of course, if you're shooting with a shutter speed of two seconds, you should use a tripod but 1/200s, I shoot without a tripod, no problemo.
And I've taken photos of landscapes at f/2.8 or ISO 1600 that turned out great and some of them even got published or won a prize. So, what I want to say is: Don't let all those rules take the fun out of it. And rules are meant to be broken, right? If the result looks good, even if it's not by following those “rules” and you like it, then it's a good photo because photography is sooooo subjective.
How to edit landscape photos
Let's go over my editing process for a lot of my landscape photos. It starts by selecting the right shot and for, me it's a lot more difficult when I went out for a day of landscape shooting because I always tend to make a billion shots of the same thing. You know, I take a photo and I'm like, maybe I should take another one in five minutes because the light is different. Or, should I take one from over there too, or over there. Most of the time, I get anxious and annoyed by my own brain because I'm afraid I'll miss that one great shot.
Going over all the photos and deciding which one is the best one. Now, I've learned never to delete shots unless they're exactly the same or badly over-exposed or blurry because in a few months, when I look at the photos again I might like another photo more. So, never just delete all the photos that you're not going to edit. Keep different angles and moments.
Then, to edit landscape photos I use Camera RAW or Lightroom (These days, just Camera RAW) to do the basic edits and Photoshop to fine-tune or the remove objects or something like that. You can use Lightroom instead of Camera RAW for the same result. Check out the video!