Color grading in photography is a crucial skill that transforms a good image into a keeper. It's especially important for photographers seeking to achieve a harmonious balance between different areas within their images, enhancing both their aesthetic appeal and emotional impact.
Coming to you from Christian Möhrle - The Phlog Photography, this instructive video offers a deep dive into the art of color grading. Möhrle begins with a raw file, demonstrating how to merge five bracketed images into an HDR file in Lightroom. He emphasizes the importance of balancing exposure before adjusting colors, showing viewers how to lift shadows and blacks without overexposing highlights. This step is foundational, as it sets the stage for the subsequent color grading process, underlining the meticulous attention required to prepare images for color adjustments.
Möhrle's approach to achieving color balance is particularly noteworthy. He uses Lightroom's temperature slider to introduce warmer tones, counteracting the image's initial blue cast. His technique of temporarily boosting vibrance and saturation to fine-tune white balance offers a practical tip that you can apply to their work. Furthermore, Möhrle's use of radial gradients and selective color adjustments demonstrates how targeted interventions can enhance specific areas of an image, such as creating a warm glow behind subjects or intensifying the sky's color for dramatic effect. His careful adjustments underscore the precision and creativity involved in color grading, making the video a valuable resource for photographers aiming to elevate their work. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Möhrle.
Select sky, select sky and invert!!!!!??? I love it. What a great trick.