Nature Photography How To

If you're looking for a few ways to spice up your fall landscape photo you've come to the right place, because the tutorial below from the PHLOG Photography YouTube channel demonstrates six quick-and-easy techniques. And don't worry, these have nothing to do with dreaded pumpkin-spice flavors.

German landscape pro Christian Mohrle is a favorite among Shutterbug readers who appreciate how his lessons simplify potentially complicated tasks. The Lightroom effects in this episode are guaranteed to give your outdoor images a unique and eye-catching look. You may want to download Mohrle's Raw files using the link beneath the video and make the changes yourself as they're explained.

We all love shooting autumn photos because of the breathtaking colors that occur as foliage transforms before trees drop their leaves, and that's the topic of Mohrle's first creative effect. This technique for enhancing fall colors involves the use of Lightroom's HSL and Calibration adjustments.

The trees in the demonstration image have yet to fully display the amazing warm tones off fall, so Mohrle opens the HSL panel, explaining that the "the most important setting you want to change is found under the Hue tab." Here you can use simple sliders to modify green, yellow, and orange tones to get the exact look you're after.

After also adjusting Saturation and Luminance the green colors of spring are gone and the image now has a realistic autumn look, but there's more you can do to complete the natural-looking transformation by opening Lightroom's Calibration tab. As you'll see, simply adjusting two sliders quickly gets the job done. Mohrle stresses the importance of taking a subtle approach so you don't bias blue tones in the sky.

Mohrle's second trick is what he calls a "Polarization Effect" that's just as simple to accomplish. Here the goal is to darken the sky with deeper and more intense blue tones—just like you'd do when shooting with a polarizing filter on your lens. A positive byproduct of this method is there will be more contrast in your image.

You'll learn four more special effects by watching this 12-minute video so pay close attention. These include creating "bokeh balls,"  and an "Orton Glow," as well as adding fog and glowing areas to your shots. Once you're done take a look at Mohrle's instructional YouTube channel for more ways to add impact to landscape photos.

We also recommend watching the tutorial we posted earlier from another image-editing expert, with an easy Lightroom method for enhancing your autumn landscape photographs.