Welcome to my blog dedicated to artistic nature and travel photography! If you're a photography enthusiast like me and love capturing the beauty of nature, I'd love to chat about photo editing 😅!
In this article, I share with you six key points for editing your nature photos. I hope that my advice will help you to enhance your shots and create magnificent images. Let's move on to the computer, dive into the world of photo editing and see together how we can improve our nature photos.
Before getting to the heart of the matter, It goes without saying that the catches in the field must be of good quality. It doesn't matter how much software you have in the world, a botched photo will always be a botched photo, and a photo that's just 'borderline' will require so much work that it's often not worth the effort! In conclusion, the better the photo captured at the outset, the easier it will be in post-production.
And then, as nature photographers, wouldn't we rather be out in the field, finding the best composition, the right timing, etc.? 🧐 even if it means going back several times?
1. Getting to know your software
Whether you use Lightroom, Capture One or DxO PhotoLab cKnowing your software inside out seems to me to be essential. As I often say in my training courses Technology should not be a barrier, but a means of breaking free from it. and be as creative as possible. Of course it takes time, but isn't that the whole point of being an artist? To take the time to meditate in front of his photos, to remember the moment and the emotion of that capture, and then to translate all that emotion into post-production.
So you need to know how your software works, understanding the behaviour of adjustments: blacks, shadows, whites, highlights, vibrance, saturation, colour adjustments etc... There are endless combinations of sliders for adjusting your images, and if you don't understand the differences, it can destroy your image and, above all, completely neutralise your creativity!
What's more, knowing the keyboard shortcuts will help you speed up your workflow by post-production, and will allow you to spend even more time in the field, so you need to learn them 🤪 (at least the minimum, it can be done little by little)!!!
To conclude on this key point, I'd advise you to use only small adjustments at a time, in small successive strokes, which in the end and accumulated will bring much more punch to your photo.
2. Look for distractions
It may sound simplistic, but we all get fooled by our memory, by focusing on our subject because we don't have a fresh eye! The first person to see our photo for the first time, the slightest distraction will 'jump out at them'.
That's why I put this key point second: looking for any distractions or distractors in the image. So it's time to clean up the stains, dust, birds (sometimes so far away that they can't be identified as such), but there are also electric wires, buoys by the sea etc... or hypersaturated objects that are going to stain. So get out your correction brushes 😍 !
Here's a simple trick, when removing a disturbance from an image is too complicated, sometimes simply desaturating or locally greying out the object can be quite sufficient. After that, when you've mastered it, it gets better, a small export to a pixel editor such as Photoshop or Affinity Photo a correction with AI works miracles 🤓!
3. Correcting the outlook
If you use a standard lens, optical distortion will be barely noticeable. However, if you are using a standard lens, you will notice little or no optical distortion, Wide-angle lenses are frequently used in landscape photography, where optical corrections become indispensable.
Wide angles need to be corrected in post-production because your image will be distorted (trees, buildings, mountains, etc.), but will also show vignetting, chromatic aberrations, loss of sharpness at the edges, etc..
If you use a logician like DxO PhotoLab , these corrections will be made simply and automatically (if configured as such)it's the best in this category ! Alternatively, you can use dedicated software such as DxO PureRaw. Other software will make these corrections semi-automatically, but with a quality that may be lower, but is generally sufficient.
4. Cropping your nature photos
There are sometimes curious scenes in photography that don't seem to fit into the standard 3×2 landscape format. Of course, there's no rule that says an image has to respect a particular format, so don't hesitate to try out different cropping options.
That's one of the reasons why I like using Capture One, because it's possible to create 'cropping styles', and by hovering over them you can switch from one cropping style to another instantly. This is very useful for finding the ideal framing when you're hesitating...
Also, pay attention to balance, symmetry and guidelines to guide the viewer's eye into the image and thus generate depth. In addition, it can sometimes be useful toincorporate a negative space around the subject (Here we come back to the need to leave yourself some space when capturing in the field. So don't hold your shot too tightly).
Here's a tip, if you are not making a panorama with several images on the ground There's nothing to stop you cropping to 'Pano' in your post-production software 😎 !
5. Dodge and Burn or Lighten and Darken
The Dodge and Burn technique is still a fantastic way of enhancing photos of nature (detailed in this article). This technique is one of the oldest and most traditional ways of lightening and darkening certain areas of an image, and can really help to create contrast and depth (a real 3D impression) within an image.
Nowadays, all development and retouching software uses layer systems, which allows you to 'dodger' (lighten) on one layer or 'burner' (darken) on another, then adjust the opacity of each layer to harmonise the final result.
With the same idea in mind, Organising your layers well can be very useful and help you to be very efficient in the long term. In other words, you can, for example, develop the tones on one layer and adjust your colours on another layer, "Dodger" on a 3rd layer and "Burner" on a 4th layer to finish with Color Grading on a 5th layer.
This organisation will allow you to make pre-sets (or presets or styles in C1) in an efficient way that can be applied to a large number of images (with little finishing work on each image). and above all to obtain a series of homogeneous and harmonious images. (your photography style, in short)
6. Introduction to pixel editors
Of course, we could all make do with fabulous photo development software such as Lightroom, Capture One or DxO PhotoLab (to name but a few) to edit our images, but we soon find ourselves reduced to pure development. Despite the fact that these programs do their job very well!
But Photoshop or Affinity Photo will let you use layers, luminance, colour and vibrance masks This gives you complete control over your post-production retouching. If you would like to delve deeper into the subject, I invite you to read my dedicated articles.
What's more, even if the development software mentioned above is capable of combining several bracketed images (taken at different exposures) into a single image, it is still possible to go much further with pixel editors. It takes time and practice, but once you've mastered the process, you'll be able to create some splendid scenes!
So that's it for the 6 key points for editing your Nature photos that I thought were essential to share with you. Most likely I'll be adding more with time and experience! I'll see you in a while then 😜 !
Happy landscape and nature photography to you,
David
