How to Rescue Poor Weather Images Using Lightroom

Popular YouTuber and landscape photographer Serge Ramelli goes through some tips on how to make images taken in poor weather conditions, more attractive.

I love looking at landscape photography and videography, but in all honesty, it rarely appeals to me to shoot. I have the highest levels of admiration for those dedicated landscape professionals who trudge across the world night and day to get the right shot, but I've never been able to get on board with the lack of creative control compared to other genres. For example, I recently shot in Iceland and I couldn't wait to see this magical place in all its splendor. Unfortunately, only two days weren't heavily raining or cloudy and there were no days appropriate for astrophotography. This is so disappointing for me and I'm not a talented enough landscape photographer to produce anything epic in those poor conditions.

Fortunately, Serge Ramelli creates a wealth of content on retouching landscape photography and his most recent video — how to rescue poor weather images — gives a useful Lightroom technique for doing such. It involves primarily a quick and effective type of color grading; adding certain colors to the shadows and complementary colors to the highlights, and then adjusting the balance to suit. A cinematic vibe can turn a less than perfect landscape in to something much more interesting to the eye.

What do you do when the weather conditions aren't playing ball?

Rob Baggs's picture

Robert K Baggs is a professional portrait and commercial photographer, educator, and consultant from England. Robert has a First-Class degree in Philosophy and a Master's by Research. In 2015 Robert's work on plagiarism in photography was published as part of several universities' photography degree syllabuses.

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