Capturing that soft, golden light of spring can instantly elevate your photos—but knowing exactly how to bring it out during editing is crucial.
Coming to you from Gareth Evans with Park Cameras, this practical video walks you through a straightforward Lightroom editing workflow aimed at emphasizing springtime warmth and enhancing golden tones in wildlife photography. Evans starts with a squirrel photograph, explaining the initial steps needed to adjust composition by cropping slightly. It's a reminder that wildlife rarely gives you the perfect frame in camera, so slight cropping can help tighten your composition, placing emphasis exactly where you want it. The tutorial continues with careful global adjustments to exposure and temperature to set the image’s foundational mood, showing how small shifts in warmth or coolness significantly affect the atmosphere of your photograph.
The core techniques Evans introduces revolve around the HSL sliders—hue, saturation, and luminance. You’ll see exactly how adjusting greens towards yellow can accentuate spring's warmth without making the scene appear unnatural. Evans emphasizes experimenting with hue adjustments carefully, suggesting you start conservatively and build up gradually, avoiding overly drastic shifts. He explains clearly why pushing colors slightly toward warmer tones captures the season's essence better. His practical approach ensures you won’t end up with overly processed photos that lose their authentic appeal.
Another key area Evans highlights is effective use of Lightroom’s masking tool. By carefully applying linear gradients and radial masks, you can manipulate lighting conditions naturally, mimicking sunlight coming from specific directions. Evans demonstrates using these masks to create a believable sense of natural illumination, gently brightening areas where sunlight would naturally fall. His guidance on how to subtly adjust exposure within masks ensures your edits remain believable. This technique allows you to direct attention toward your subject without overwhelming the scene. Evans also covers the precise control you can achieve with brushes, enabling targeted brightness enhancements where needed, such as animal fur textures.
Evans further explores color adjustments using Lightroom's color grading and masking features. Here, you learn to finely tune the background and foreground independently, creating clear visual distinctions between your subject and its environment. He shows you the importance of slight color shifts in bringing depth and vibrancy to your images without compromising their natural integrity. He emphasizes restraint, keeping changes small enough to enhance realism while adding noticeable warmth and richness. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Evans.
