When shooting landscapes after sunset, colors often fade, leaving your image looking a little flat and lifeless. But with the right editing techniques, you can bring back some of that warm, vibrant glow, creating a visually compelling result.
Coming to you from Christian Möhrle of The Phlog Photography, this helpful video explores a step-by-step approach to restoring sunset colors in a night shot using Adobe Lightroom. Möhrle begins with the basics, adjusting the image profile to Adobe Standard to neutralize the colors and create a starting point. He then suggests cropping out unwanted elements and reducing the exposure to give the image a more natural nighttime look. One important tip he offers is to pay close attention to the histogram. By carefully balancing shadows and highlights, you can avoid underexposing or overexposing parts of the image, keeping the details intact even in darker areas.
Möhrle’s process of creating warmth in the sky while controlling muddy greens in the foreground demonstrates how to work selectively with the white balance. After lowering the temperature to introduce a cool blue, he uses local adjustments to bring back warmth in specific parts of the sky. His approach to masking is thorough and thoughtful. By layering multiple masks on top of each other, he adds contrast and depth, working on different areas of the sky to maintain a natural gradient from cool to warm tones. His method ensures that stars remain visible, adding an extra layer of interest to the night scene.
Beyond color adjustments, Möhrle focuses on clarity and detail. He enhances the image by adding clarity and vibrance, which sharpens and enriches the colors without overpowering the scene. Möhrle also goes through color grading using the color mixer to adjust luminance, saturation, and hue of specific color channels, like yellows and blues, to make the sky and foreground stand out. These adjustments make the image richer and more textured, allowing the viewer’s eye to flow naturally from the foreground to the sky. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Möhrle.
And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out our latest tutorial, "Photographing the World: Japan II - Discovering Hidden Gems with Elia Locardi!”
